A Treatise on the Lifespan of a Dwarf
by The Famous Fire Lady M
Summary: Merle finally gets to see Casa Burnsides for himself, but the Astral Plane holds many surprises. (cross-posted from AO3) Johnchurch/Davenchurch/Davenjohnchurch
1. Chapter 1

Merle knows he's dead, and he knows because why else would Taako's well dressed husband be there, at his door, like a guest. He's swept off his feet, and the first real sensation that fills him is a jolt of feels like he's dreaming. He looks back to realize he is , and that's his body right there in his easy chair next to Davenport's own patterned chair where they'd sit and talk or drink tea or play chess. It's a half-dream that carries him through, and into the Astral Plane. The steamboat is new though, and he wonders if it's just to keep up with the times or if it's for him specifically. Looking at it makes him think of Davenport, and it aches like a hole in his chest.

The first thing Merle sees, the instant his incorporeal flip-flops touch ground on Burnsides Island, which, surprisingly, crunches underfoot the way sand should - even incorporeal ghost sand - is the careful rise of a rooftop, with a cozy chimney puffing incorporeal smoke into the endless sky. He'd recognize that design anywhere. It looks just like the house Magnus built when he was alive, the one Angus' grandkids must be raising theirkids in. Oh, Pan, he was gonna miss them. Angus, too, since he was busy with Reaper Things now, and Taako wouldn't be dead for another good long while. Barry promised they'd drop in once in a while, and he knew he could hold them to that, but beside that, he knew he'd miss the old captain himself. Merle wonders if Davenport even knows he's dead yet. The gnome had just left a couple days prior. He kissed Merle goodbye, got on his little boat, and sailed into the rising sun. Merle's chest aches, thinking about it, thinking about Davenport coming home to an empty house, or if he was lucky, getting the news before getting home. If he was lucky, Davenport wouldn't be heading to the Astral plane for another century or so. He hopes his kids don't find him. Or Davenport for that matter. Merle hopes it wasn't even Hekubah who somehow is clinging to life, out of sheer spite. If anyone has to find his body, he hopes it's Taako. Taako is steady, and he has the reapers to lean on in case things get truly hectic. The elf would talk to Kravitz, and he'd know he settled in on Burnsides Island, and that he's fine . Very dead but, nonetheless, fine .

It strikes him he should make a final goodbye to Kravitz, so Taako gets the full scoop, but he looks back to where the Astral Steamboat was chugging along the Astral Docks he guessed were actually used, occasionally, to see if Kravitz was around still, but no dice. Guess that means he's on his own. He hopes, maybe, Kravitz breaks the news to Taako, or even his family. The kids, especially. He hopes Davenport takes it well. He hopes more than anything else that he doesn't see Davenport for a good long while. He hopes the kids don't end up there soon either. Even Hekubah he doesn't want to see for a long long time. The kids need her just as much as anyone else.

Merle listens to the soothing crunch of sand underfoot, trying to clear his mind of everything, trying to focus on the good things, that he'd be seeing his human friends again, letting his little legs carry him through the adorable wooden gate. It's quiet, but it's peaceful, up until the herd of dogs come barreling at him. It screams Magnus Lives Here, or technically Magnus Is Dead Here. He knocks, once on the door, fighting to get past the swarm of furry beasts. It's all he has time for before the door is swept open, and he's pulled into a bone crushing hug. Well, it would be bone crushing if he had any bones. And the barking . If he had real live ears he'd be deaf by now.

"Oh, shit , buddy." Merle manages to squeeze out, patting every inch of the big guy's shoulders he could reach. The dogs are going wild around Magnus, but he pays them no mind. "I missed you too."

Magnus sets him down, and Merle looks up at him. The fighter looks good. Like he did back then, centuries ago. "I'm so glad you're here. I mean, I'm not glad you died , but-"

"I lived a long, long, long, long life. It's fine, Mags. They named somebody after you. Your great grandson. Magnus McDonald."

"Ha! Hear that?" Magnus bellows into the house, and there's a rousing chorus of familiar voices. He can hear Lucretia inside, along with an unfamiliar voice, husky and kind. He remembers, Lucretia followed Magnus by a week. Taako found her after the funeral, like she went in her sleep. The ghostly part of him that approximates a heart twists, and Merle steps into the house. Lucretia sits at a beautifully carved table, and she looksyoung . Beside her, a hand folded over hers, there's a handsome redheaded woman with a rough face. He surmises this must be Julia, since he'd never met her.

"Was it hard traveling out here?" Lucretia asks, and there's a glitter of hunger for knowledge in her eyes.

Merle laughs, and clambers into the room, up onto a chair. "'Bout as rough as you can get, out there. Used to smoother sailing, I guess." His smile wavers just a hair. "Your kids and family send their love."

"You would have loved Angus back then." Lucretia says to Julia, with a laugh. "He hasn't changed much since then, but still. He was a little different as a child, when Magnus first met him."

"C'mon, I'll show you around." Magnus says, with a grin like he's eager to show off his wife's handiwork. "Oh! By the way, this is Julia."

"I've heard so much about you," Merle says, and it's true. Julia looks at her husband with a fondness that would rot teeth with how sweet it is, and Merle hops off the chair. He's had enough of that. Waddling along beside Magnus, he lets Magnus tell him all about what has happened in the century he'd been alive. From what he can gather, it's been quiet for a while. Besides the dogs, he guesses, who are currently slobbering incorporeal drool all over his beard.

The cabin looks so much bigger on the inside. There's several rooms from what he can tell, and an upstairs that he definitely could not spy from outside, with a spiral staircase that seems to lead up to what might be an observatory and more rooms. How many people the Burnsides expect to stop by here, Merle doesn't know, but it brings everything together in a familiar, but not too familiar, but not too not -familiar way. The decor is very Magnus and it's nice, and he loves it immediately. The kitchen, where Lucretia and Julia were talking, was open, but their voices were hushed. Magnus gestures with a tilt of his head.

"You gotta see the view from the back," Magnus tells him. "We built it just for sitting out there. Julia likes to joke it's for watching the sun set, but as you can see, no sun."

There's a back porch, and it's cute. Quaint, even. Bay windows, with massive shutters, white wood, hearts carved into nooks in a couple places. It's kitschy but it's homey.

But his gaze is on the dock a dozen or so yards from the back porch. There's no breeze, nothing, but he feels like he's being battered around by a storm. Magnus is lingering back by the window, and his expression is pensive, and he's watching Merle. Watching Merle make the discovery of a thousand lifetimes. There's a man on the dock, a human man.

Merle knows that figure, back to him, shoulders much more relaxed than he remembered them being. The salt and pepper hair, more pepper than salt this time. That too, is blowing in an incorporeal wind that must be coming off the Astral Sea.

He's sitting, one knee up, the other hanging off the dock, and his charcoal colored shirt is open at the collar, and he's barefoot . The last time Merle saw him, a hundred years ago, he was barefoot, just like that, and his sleeves were rolled up, and the sunset painted everything red and gold. Merle still regrets not kissing him before he vanished.

It's hard to walk, Merle realizes, each slow step dragging toward the dock taking him closer. He must hear the low impact of Merle's feet on the sand, but he doesn't even move. Merle steps onto the dock, and it creaks beneath his feet, and in an instant his every concentrated thought was on the human before him. Merle opens his mouth to speak-

"Long time no see, huh." John says, over his shoulder, and Merle cracks a grin, leaning a hand up on the dock pole, where an unlit lantern dangles above his head. It holds his attention for a brief moment as he watches it squeak back and forth, swinging in the Astral Wind. "It's been longer for me than you, I think." He adds, shifting to turn and face the dwarf. His elbow is up on his knee, and Merle has never seen him look so relaxed. "You can sit down. We can talk here, for, well ," a faint smile crosses John's lips, and Merle feels like a hundred trains just ran over his heart, or throughit, if he had to honestly say, "For forever if we need it."

He folds his legs and squats down. "I didn't think you'd be around. Thought you just," he pops his lips, and gesticulates a poof gesture, "Poofed out of existence."

"That's what I thought would happen too." John's eyes are low, and distantly, Merle wonders if his eye color's changed. "But, as you can see. Clearly that wasn't the case. With the disappearance of the Hunger, what I was , was just a man. I… came back to my home plane, no longer anything but myself. Where there was no you." John considers his next words, and it genuinely feels like he's struggling with it. Merle is amazed and a little worried that he can't seem to spin a story with his silver tongue anymore. "I lived, the way you would want me to. I chose happiness, Merle. I chose life." His hand is wrapped tight around his knee, and he's staring at Merle. It jolts the dwarf to see he has eyes the color of fresh grass, a bright green that has an intensity to it that fills his chest and makes it hard to breathe all of a sudden, not that he needed air to begin with. "But I never…" He pauses, trying to think of a way to word it. All this time as the voice of legion, and now is when he's tongue tied. "You weren't there , Merle. On my home plane." John's throat works like he's swallowing around a lump in his throat, and Merle's own dark eyes lock onto his. He can't really even believe what John is saying. "You know? What's the point of living out there, all my memories, all of us , of you , and I could never see you again."

"You didn't….?"

John knew what he was asking. Did he ever find anyone else. Or perhaps did he take his own life. Either way, the answer was the same. "No. Not that it matters. I had, what, fifteen years left, twenty at best?"

Merle whistles. "How long have you been waiting? Were you here with Magnus this whole time?" He wonders if that's why he's been so much more quiet, that he's subdued because Magnus never met the man they called the Hunger. He only knew the fight, the death, the fear. Merle wonders if Magnus even knows this is the Hunger itself, some sad lonely human that's been waiting for him for a good century.

John doesn't answer, but it doesn't matter, because he's pulling him in, and John's hugging him, close to his chest, and he chokes out a sob, and Merle simply hauls his head in, close, and cards his hand through John's hair. That gets a hiccup and a quiet laugh out of him and he bows his head to Merle's shoulder, and Merle smiles into his hair, smelling faintly of salt air and soap.

"Missed you too, buddy."


	2. Chapter 2

John is trembling, Merle notices, when he comes back to his senses, long limbs folded over his back. The dwarf closes his hand through the human's hair, and a sigh breaks out of him. "You know, there's no sunset out here for a frame of reference."

For a moment, John glances at him, brow pursed, puzzled, before Merle continues, taking a light tone, carefully adding. "Can't up and leave on me, now."

It's like a hundred suns are burning, there, just for Merle, when John smiles. He tips his face down, like he's bashful about it, and Merle can't help but chuckle softly. "Can't really go anywhere, here, Merle."

"You can, uh, jump into the Astral Sea." Merle suggests, and it's like another small miracle. The corners of John's lips curve upwards, and his heart sings. He closes his hands, and then opens them, flexing his fingers, some small part of him marvelling at the fact that he's got two flesh hands again, but the rest of him is pin pointed at one incredible notion - John. "I don't really know what that'll do to you, but I don't really want to find out either."

John's eyes catch on Merle's expression, and he's staring, taking in every inch of the dwarf the way a dying man would take in the sight of Heaven. Merle doesn't notice, he's too busy flashing a broad grin at his own stupid joke, and John wants to reach out for his hand, his perfect flesh hand. He doesn't, though. Something stops him every time. Maybe it's the way Merle's laughing, or maybe its the glint of gold on his finger. That realization turns John's stomach - that Merle married, re-married , after. John wonders if everything is different now, since he's, well, mortal , or at least was. He's no longer connected to everything and everyone, and John is itching to ask Merle if that changes how he feels about him. Unless, unless, Merle is just as happy to see him.

"Man, if I knew you were going to be here, I'd be a lot happier." It's just a joke, but Merle does think it has a ring of truth to it. He misses Davenport, but if the old captain shows up any time soon, Merle won't forgive him. Or at least he says he won't, but he knows he won't be mad for very long.

John stands, all gangly limbs on a too tall frame and settles besides him, letting out a weary exhale like old bones being put to rest. He looks fragile, human, and the thought strikes Merle as funny, because he's not , not anymore . Souls aren't fragile, and whatever corporeal form he had back then isn't the same as it is now, even if it looks like it. "I am glad you've arrived, finally." He says in a quiet voice, "Even if that sounds particularly callous, Merle."

"I lived a good life, wouldn't you think? Good and long. Met a lot of people, saved a lot of folks." Merle huffs, pride in his words. He looks up at John, and gestures to him, before his hands drop, limp at his sides. "Saved you, didn't I?"

"Thank you, Merle." John admits, softly, and looks at him with eyes the color of new grass, and Merle gives him the biggest smile in return. "I must sound so ungrateful, talking about how you weren't there to challenge me, make me think about things anymore."

Merle doesn't think, he just does , and what he does is reach out and take John's hand. John nearly stumbles over the smooth sand, his bare feet making no noise across the beach as they walk back to Casa Burnsides . He can see Magnus from where they stand, twenty yards out to the beach.

"You okay?" Merle asks, like he didn't just make John trip over his own feet, and he swings John's hand in his. He still can't believe any of this. It all feels like a dream. But, he supposes, it has to be real. John's hand in his feels good, feels solid, feels like it's supposed to. It's not work worn and small like Davenport's. It's not the all-encompassing warmth of Pan. But it's John's, and by its' very nature it's good , just for being John's. It's dry, and it's cold, which strikes Merle as weird, that souls can get chilly, or maybe that's just how he is. Merle runs his hand over the human's knuckles, folding both his broad hands over and around John's, and his is so much warmer compared to John. It occurs to him, maybe that was why John was shaking so.

"We can head back in, if you're freezing. Because you feel freezing , John."

It's as if John has forgotten how to walk when they start back toward the cabin. Merle's hand hasn't released his, like it's normal, like it's second nature to him. Somehow, that aches, somewhere inside him that had laid empty for so long. The walk is slow going, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. John only expects Merle to release him once they reach the cabin, but he doesn't. Instead, John's hand draws back, away from the comforting warmth of Merle's palm, and he eyes the dwarf, his gaze guarded in a way that Merle doesn't seem to notice.

"Your friend," he hesitates, mouth having trouble forming the shape of words, "Magnus." (Somewhere inside, Merle is surprised John knows everyone's names, but of course he does. Of course he would.) "He's there, waiting for you."

"He can wait, you know." Merle says. "We've got the rest of forever."

"So can I, Merle." John says, and there's something sad in the way he does. He does not offer his hand back to the dwarf, either, and Merle sinks his heels in a little more. "He probably wants to talk to you." John prompts, and pauses. "About me. "

"Mmhm. Right, right." Merle waves him off, and heads inward to the cabin. His feet sink into the sand, and it's starting to get cold. He wonders why the hell it gets cold in the Astral Plane if there were no seasons, or a sun for that matter. The wind is picking up, and he guesses, maybe it's just how it is. Who is he to judge how things go in the Astral Plane. It's good boating weather, he knows, just from experience with Davenport. Maybe that's why, since they're on an uncharted island on an endless sea of souls. Merle wonders if everyone else, the contents of the sea are just as happy, or if they don't know what happiness is anymore, since they're just empty souls. Somehow he pities them, even if they don't feel much of anything anymore. He doesn't know, he's never been here before. The dwarf pauses, looking out past John, past the island, out to the distance where the gray sky meets the swirling torrents of the Astral Sea. He deserves this, doesn't he? A happy ending, earned from centuries of good deeds, of being a hero. He's not so sure. There was always the one person he wished he could have saved, he could have done something for. And now, now that John's right there he wishes he could just, cut through the bullshit and ask him, but something, something is stopping him. He doesn't know if it's the time that separates them, or the distance (he was stranded on another plane in another universe so far away) or something else that he can't seem to pinpoint, and somehow that hurts, but it's a good hurt, because John is right there .

There's three chairs on the back deck, but Merle know Magnus can build more. He assumes the three are for Magnus, Lucretia, and Julia. There's one in the process of being built, and the way it's built looks like there's been two craftsmen on the job. Merle catches a smile across his face, and he knows, maybe they're happy like this. All dead, all secluded, but not lonely. He looks back to John, who has been lingering back a few meters. His feet are heavy on the sand, but he doesn't make a sound. It strikes Merle as odd there's only three, and that John doesn't want to approach the cabin, and when he asks, Magnus shrugs.

"We offered him a chair, but he said no, that he preferred to sit on the beach. When he first showed up, I had no idea who he was." Magnus says, in a conspiratorial voice. Just past a whisper. He's leaning back against the porch railing. "You know, he's been here for a long while, and I barely get a couple sentences out of him every so often. Julia seems to get the most out of him some days, other times it's Lucretia. He joins them for tea sometimes, you see. And there's a huge library, of books from all over, that one's Lucy's, and that's where he spends his time if he's not outside. She's curious about him, but Jules just thinks he's lonely. She's the one who set up his room. Upstairs, if you want to see it." Magnus nods toward where John's turned, watching the endless horizon, like he's expecting the sun to set where there is no sun. "Only figured it out when he asked about you."

"John asked about me? What did he say?" Merle scrambles up the low steps, and Magnus' gaze clips down to the dwarf.

"You know, you can ask him yourself, right?" Magnus answers, and he gestures. "The guy's just over there." John's attention is on the beach, and it hasn't wavered since he looked out several minutes prior. He'd been out there, staring at the beach for a long time. It's like looking at a statue, one candid beautifully plain statue, of a human man he shouldn't be aching over, since a century and a half. John's not beautiful, not by a long shot, but he looks sad, wistful almost, and fulfilled, and like he's done a lifetime of good in fifteen short years. He had his second chance without Merle. Guess this means this is his third. Round three in the ring with old Highchurch. Let's see who gets a TKO first. John's already halfway there by the way he's been looking at him with those beautiful green eyes.

Merle goes to the steps and pauses, just watching him. His gaze is drawn inextricably to John, and he wants to go to him, but his short legs can't carry him there fast enough. It's slow going down the stairs, but he stops again, waiting to see if John acknowledges him. He does not, so Merle approaches, once more. His hands are tucked into his pockets, and he's meandering over to John. The wind picks up, and its blowing at his beard and his hair, and it's so very nearly icy it cuts into him, and again , Merle wonders whose idea it was to have weather in the Astral Plane, just until he spots John in the low light, dim through clouds, wind-blown, cheeks ruddy from the cold, and he is in love. It strikes him the way lightning strikes something metal, all the way down to his toes, which are, surprisingly, going numb in the cold weather. It genuinely feels as if he's out on the beach in wintertime, which it is , back on Faerun. Or at least it was. He isn't sure how time passes out here, in the Astral Plane. But looking at John, he feels something like warmth blossom inside his chest, and he smiles as he takes slow steps toward the human.

"Hey, John?"

He doesn't turn, but the way John's shoulders relax, Merle knows he's listening. He takes another step, sand crunching each time his feet hit the ground. "Got a minute?"

John whips his head around like he heard something worse than a few words, and his expression folds just as easily. "I'm still waiting to see if the sun's gonna set."

It strikes Merle as incredibly honest, and he holds his tongue, hands working in front of him. He wonders, again, what kinds of things the human asked about, and what kind of things Lucretia told him. He hopes Magnus didn't tell him anything too awful. The way John stands, it's as if he's on edge, and Merle reaches out to him. The dwarf takes hold of his forearm, and squeezes just enough to be reassuring, before slipping his hand into his again. "It's not going to. Let's go inside."

John concedes, opening his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He wants to ask Merle about the ring on his finger, about who he gave his heart to, but the words don't want to form, lying bitter on his tongue. He lets Merle guide him up the steps to where Magnus was holding the door for the both of them. From inside, he can smell something like bread cooking, and a flickering firelight spills outward down the steps and onto the sand. "I missed you, you know. You jackass." Merle grumbles, hauling John into the house. "If you were half as sanctimonious as you were the first time I saw you, I think I would have tossed you into the Astral Sea. Let the ghosts get you."

John doesn't answer, but he feels like he doesn't have to, by the way Merle squeezes his hand. It's warm, and the heat lifts to his cheeks, nearly frozen from the gale. He squeezes back, and Merle's smile warms him the rest of the way.


	3. Chapter 3

John's gaze is focused elsewhere, to where Julia is telling the rest of them a raucous story that seems to involve a duck, Magnus, and several apples, a deeply involved yarn with grand hand gestures, and Julia is really getting into it. Laughter echoes through the small kitchen, Magnus' wheezing laughter, and Lucretia reduced to tears, and Julia's strong voice coming through with the punchline, and John has a glass of something strong lifted halfway to his smiling lips, and Merle is staring at him from across the table. The candlelight flickers, and it looks so much like sunset. John looks happy , and it's as if the moment is frozen in time. He blinks, and the moment is over, and John is looking at him.

"What is it?" John asks, and he's searching Merle's expression, slightly puzzled. Merle shakes his head, and he's got a laugh of his own bubbling up, and he claps his hand down on the table in jest.

"Why don't you tell the one about the philosopher's stone?"

Magnus starts to crack up, and Lucretia looks like she's going to kill a man. Julia, however, is incredibly intrigued, and honestly, Merle does notwant to know the thoughts running through her head, especially if they involved Magnus eating anything else. "Okay, so-"

With the rest of the table distracted, Merle leans his hand on his chin, just, soaking it in. John catches his gaze for just a brief moment, and he holds it, looking at him, and the slight smile that frames across his face hasn't slipped for a moment. For a brief instant, Merle's breath catches in his throat, and he feels like he's choking, and the heat that fills his chest is almost as intense as it had been every parlay. He hides it with a gruff smirk, and then hiding his mouth with his cup.

"Is it always like this?" Merle asks, and John's smile cracks a little. It fades, only a smidge, and Merle wonders for the briefest of moments if it has to do with him, or with the story. He spots it in an instant, and some part of him wonders why asking would do that to him. "I mean, I don't think I've ever seen you laugh like this."

"Oh?" John says, and his eyebrows raise, and his too-green eyes catch the light, and if Merle isn't mistaken, there's a glitter there he'd never seen before. It might also, just be the candlelight flickering just so. Or also, maybe the booze. He can feel it slugging through his system, despite his dwarven resistance to all things fun and unfortunately also bad for the body. Somehow. Maybe it's ghost ale. Maybe it's just the thought of ale that's doing it. He is definitely not in the mood to debate the semantics of Astral Plane food, for those corporeal incorporeal selves residing there. "Though," he says, leaning an elbow on the rough hewn table, and his face is flushed, just across his cheekbones, and if Merle isn't mistaken, it's on the tips of his rounded human ears too, "No, it's usually not. I think it's just because you're here."

"Because I'm here," Merle says, like he doesn't believe it. He's thinking about it, mouth working, turning it over and over in his mind. For a second, he wished Davenport was there. Davenport, who didn't know how to read a room, who, who was a rock to his waves, to his unending cyclical self, over and over again, being there for him the second he needed it. He wonders if Lucretia misses Davenport, but then again, it's been years since she had seen him. And he wonders if Davenport is still angry at her, somewhere deep down where he never would have shown Merle.

"I can't particularly speak for anyone else at this table, but I know that I'm glad." John adds, quietly. He lets out a slow breath, and his shoulders sink, and his eyes, green like precious stones, bore into the tabletop. "You of all people should know how important that is, for me to be glad about something." John sits back, thumb swiping back and forth across his glass, the amber liquid inside glinting in the candlelight. The silence between them is broken by the hysterical guffawing of Magnus and his bride, and Lucretia's exasperated sighs as he described exactly what happened with very vivid imagery and semi-explicit hand gestures to articulate his points better.

Merle catches the tail end of it, and sits up straighter, gathering a hand through his hair, before, looking at everyone else. "I feel like a walk might do me some good. You don't mind?"

"Don't fall in." Magnus says, the serious sound of his voice is otherwise undermined by the way he's trying not to laugh. Lucretia beside him is absolutely stone faced, and he knows her poker face better than anyone else, and that is for sure her poker face.

"Quit bullying him," Julia admonishes her husband and wife, and looks to Merle. "Hon, this is your afterlife just as much as the rest of ours. You sure as hell can go for a walk."

The walk, on the other hand, stops at the back deck. Merle settles into the seat closest to the stairs, and he watches John come outside after him. His breath steams in the air, and he's wearing what looks like an overcoat.

"Cold?" He teases, and John steps past him to pop a squat on the sturdy wooden steps, one knee higher than the other by the way he's turned toward Merle, one foot a step above the other. He's leaning on his knee, both arms crossed, and just looking at him. Merle's itching to take him by the jaw and kiss him breathless, but he doesn't move. It's too cold for romance. He's a beach dwarf, not a frost dwarf, and, yes, this was a beach, but it's winter, and somehow there was still seasons in the Astral Plane. That still seems so odd to him, but of course, it would be easier to adjust to, since it's winter in Faerun. Again, his thoughts carry him back home to the beach, to where he guessed Davenport would be just getting home. Maybe Kravitz would be waiting there for him. Maybe Taako too, to break the news gently. Taako and Davenport, of course, would be the last livingmembers of the IPRE. It stung a little, to think about, but it was inevitable. Merle knows the math was against him from the start. The game was rigged. No more rounds in the ring for ol' Highchurch.

He supposes that's what it must be like for everyone else. Silently, Merle prays to Pan, not even sure if he'll hear him from all the way out here in the Astral Plane, smack dab in the middle of the Astral Sea, surrounded by souls that must also be calling out to their own gods. He doesn't even know what he's praying for, but he guesses he'll know when it occurs to him. Thoughts of home come to him once more, and he's praying in his head for the kids to be safe, and to be happy, and for them not to come home to his body and to a cold house. He prays for Hekubah's happiness, and that strikes him as a surprise after he says it. He prays that if she finds his body, that she takes it well, and doesn't end up on a one way ticket to the Astral Plane either. He doesn't know if he can handle two of his spouses here at the same time. Whenever Davenport was due to arrive, at least. He prayed it wouldn't be too soon. Davenport had a whole 'nother century or two to live before he even expected him to make a landing on Burnsides Island. If he landed here any time soon, Merle would have a bone to pick with him. Maybe two. That would be after he sweeps the gnome captain into his arms and off his feet and gives him a good real harlequin romance novel cover kiss. He misses Davenport more than he realizes, he thinks, because that's the most ridiculous thing he could ever have prayed for, and yet, he wants it. But being here, with John, doesn't feel like a betrayal. He doesn't think it ever would. It feels right, like he's meant to be here. Even so, it hurts, missing his kids, missing his family, missing Davenport. He misses his husband, and he'd say it's killing him if he wasn't already, you know, super totally dead.

"So," Merle says, swinging his feet. The chair is too big for him to sit with his feet on the ground, but the back deck is much warmer than the beach. John's folded like a paper crane, perched on the steps. He looks back at Merle, and the cloudy sky hasn't changed a bit, perpetually stuck in an overcast near twilight, but in this lighting, in the gloom, John still stands out. His hair is mussed, just enough to look completely different, yet exactly like he did the last time Merle saw him. The biggest change is how healthy John looks, the bloom of color across his cheeks, and along his nose, which Merle guesses is from the brisk cold, and Merle fills with a blossoming heat once more just from noticing that. It takes him a second to realize, but in the dim, John's gaze softens, and he knows Merle is staring at him. He leans his elbow on his crooked knee, just regarding Merle carefully, studying his visage, the ways it's changed, and the ways it hasn't.

From across the deck, John can't reach him even with his gangly arms, but he's got his free hand reached out across it as far as he can. "So," John replies, casually. But Merle knows him enough to hear the cool incalculable anger hidden just deep enough it's not audible on the surface. "You didn't have that ring last time I saw you."

"I'm genuinely surprised it stuck." Merle says, examining his hand. "Didn't think it would all the way out here."

John's face curls into a frown, but its near imperceptible, and when his eyes flash to Merle, the dwarf is surprised to see it. The words are sticking in his throat, but he needs to know, wants desperately to know, and also to not know, to not have the image in his mind of someone he would inevitably be running up against.

"W-who?"

Merle's eyebrows pinch together, and he's looking at John, and somehow it aches to think about the way John's lips curve down, the folding of his expression. "You know, gnomes outlive dwarves, nine times outta ten. Dav's gonna find somebody new, you'd think, and it'll be somebody a little less like me. That's just life."

"Your captain…" John says with a cold realization. He sits back on his heels, gaze flat, and turns toward the Sea. The roar of the wind around the cabin picks up. Merle follows his gaze to the far distant horizon, and wants to know what John's thinking about.

"Yeah, John. I settled down. They made me an Earl, John. I had a bar, right off the water. Me and Davenport were happy." He says it with no hesitation. His dark eyes are searching what little he could see of John's face, the side profile lit up by the dim, illuminated every so often by some small glinting things that appear like stars in the sky. "I had no idea if you lived or died, John." He gestures wildly out to the distance. "You were on your home plane, that could have been a million billion miles from Faerun."

John considers his words for a long moment; Merle can see where his gaze flicks back and forth in thought across the horizon. His brow furrows, and a brief glimpse of something like pain crosses his face. "If I didn't. If I had stayed on, on ... Your plane, on Faerun ."

"Would I have reconsidered?" Merle asks, unprompted, and John shuts his mouth tight. "Ah, jeez , you know," He thinks about it, scrubbing his hand through his beard. "I might've." Merle sighs, and looks down at his hands, down at the ring on his finger. "For weeks, I kept hoping you'd show up. After, you know?" His gaze darts back up to John, and he finds that the human has been staring at him, green eyes almost black in the dark.

"Funny, that." He lifts his hand to his mouth, and worries at his lip with his knuckles. "You were my friend , John, and I never saw you again."

"One doesn't generally ask friends to marry them, Merle." He says, stiffly, and Merle's head shoots up to look at him. John's fingers close over his dress shirt pocket, left hand side and he gathers his shirt in his fist. Beneath that, is where his heart is, or where it would be. A hollow feeling gathers there, filling his whole chest. John fights the urge to gasp at the sensation. Even a hundred plus years of living, as a real life, whole personhas not given him the capability, the capacity to feel so deeply, to be equipped with knowing how to deal with these emotions as they arose. Magnus and Julia and Lucretia were something closer than acquaintances now, but none of them aroused such feelings in him the way Merle would, and the way he did. Looking at Merle, with the firelight streaming outside from the window, illuminating him the way it is, John feels a tear in his chest, an ache too big for words alone to describe. Merle's mouth opens, and he looks like he's about to add a dry remark, but nothing comes. Instead, he swipes his fingers across his mouth in thought, like he's trying to solve a conundrum he can't seem to work out.

" John," He says, hoarsely, through his fingers, words muffled, but John is hanging on every word. Even when they don't come, even when he's picking himself up off the hardwood paneling.

John leans in, practically crawling across the deck to him. He finds himself staring at the dwarf's lips, how they seem to look softer than the rest of him. "Yes, Merle?"

John wants to scramble to his feet, a mess of tangled limbs, and envelop Merle like a ravenous thing. His mouth would crush to Merle's, and he'd hold the dwarf in his arms, up off the ground. Or Merle would be standing on the chair, and it would bring him much closer to John's face. John imagines cupping his face in his hands, fingers threaded through his beard, palm cradling the rough angles of his face, and seeking out something in the dwarf's mouth.

But he doesn't.

John aches , like an emptiness, like a hunger too deep for words. He hopes Merle can see it in his face, in the way he's watching the dwarf's skilled fingers comb through his beard. It must be an anxious tic, he thinks, because Merle's dark eyes haven't left his face in several minutes. He's not even sure if Merle's blinked.

Merle is watching John, the way other people watch something like an eclipse - carefully. Counting his options, Merle waits. He's patient, in a way he suspects John isn't, and somehow that knowledge sends a nail right through his heart. Merle aches, but it's a different ache. He misses his home, his husband, and maybe it's just him needing to adjust, since he's only been dead half a day but it hurts. And he doesn't know if John knows that, but the way John has been, he wishes he could tell him. But John never lost anyone the way he did, John didn't marry someone who was going to outlive him by a century or more. But he could have , a small voice reminds him, if he had come back to Faerun? If you fell in love with him? But that didn't happen, he tells himself. He loves him now, and he loved him then, but loving someone and missing them and actually being with them were two vastly different things. He missed Hekubah too, sometimes, but did that mean he loved her the way he loved Davenport? The answer was no, no matter what the niggling little voices in the back of his head told him. Another question arose unbidden. Did he love John the way he loved Davenport? The way he still loves Davenport?

Merle doesn't know if he has an answer to that.


	4. Chapter 4

Time passes in leaps and bounds in the Astral Plane, and Merle settles into a routine. Wake up, go to the beach, find John, get called back to the cabin for lunch, look over the library, tea with Lucretia. His days fly by, and he doesn't seem to notice it. It's as if the longer he goes on, the less he thinks of the people he left behind. He grows complacent here, in forever, on the back end of it. And it's absolutely fine . Merle finds out things he never would have guessed. John likes tea, drinks it with sugar and lemon. It's funny, the things he remembers. Lucretia takes it with lemon, Magnus likes milk in his and enough sugar to kill twenty horses, Julia likes hers with milk and a shot of bourbon. A girl after his own heart. And John? He never woulda thought of John as a tea person. A coffee type? Absolutely. Davenport preferred coffee too, but he wouldn't turn down a good cup of tea if Merle was making it. But of course, this wasn't Merle's tea.

The smallest things still do make him think of his family, but even then his thoughts barely if ever dwell on them, not the way they used to. He smiles, thinking about it, and on accident makes a second cup of tea the way Davenport likes it - out of sheer habit. Merle downs the second cup, hands shaking. He can see the way Lucretia looks at him when he does, concern making its way across her features. Merle doesn't know if his face betrayed any raw emotions, but if it did, he doesn't care. He's just worried about John. John who had been waiting for him for years. A century and a half even. That has nearly nothing to do with Davenport, but the thought sticks with him.

Lucretia covers Merle's shaking hand with her own, and he glances at her. She knows, she'd been closer to Davenport than anyone else besides him. "Do you need a minute, Merle?" She asks, tenderly, and his heart rends for her.

The dwarf doesn't answer, but it's written clear as day across his face. Merle stacks the cups and moves them out of the way, and Lucretia's lips purse, watching him. It hits him like a sack of concrete, a million pounds of it.

"You're allowed to mourn, Merle." Lucretia says, her hand on his. She squeezes, once, tenderly, before pulling her hand off his. "It's hard, leaving everyone behind. I…" She closes her eyes, and winces, and turns her head away at the thought. "I thought I'd be happy because Magnus is happy, and you know better than anyone else here how hard he wanted to see Julia again."

"Yeah," Merle shakes his head, something like a weary chuckle leaking out. "You know, my kids-" He stops, and the look on Lucretia's face is enough to get him to stay silent. She aches too, maybe not the way he does, and hell, she's lost more than him, she's got every right to it. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be dwelling on them, should I?" Merle slips into an apologetic smile, and reaches out to pat her hand where it lies beside her teacup.

"When I say you're allowed to mourn," Lucretia says, counting over her words carefully. "I mean it from a place of empathy." Her brow knits, and she rolls her lips through her teeth. "My family, Magnus' family. They all have lives of their own. I couldn't just, sit here, waiting for them, could I?" She says it again, softer: "Could I?" When he doesn't answer, she continues, firmly. "What I mean is, Merle, that there are things you can worry about and things that, in all honesty, you must let go of to be happy, to get that rest you deserve. Do you understand that?"

She's talking about his kids, and in an instant he remembers Davenport is still out there. It felt like he was just gone the way he'd leave on his boat, but Davenport would always be back. He's not coming back , Merle realizes, and for a second all the air leaves his lungs. Lucretia looks at him, and there's sympathy there in her gaze. "All things have their time, Merle. Do you remember you were the one who taught me that?" Her slender hands take his small ones.

He does remember. The Ice Plane. It was the two of them, and it was just after Magnus died. How did they survive like that? She wanted to know, How could the two of them live and everyone else just die like that. Merle remembers like it was yesterday. And it could have been, going by how Lucretia looks now, her hair curly and short, boyish , she called it when they first met, and she laughed, and Pan, his heart aches. She was so young then, and they shouldn't have been the ones out there all alone. They were just kids, Merle thinks, and realizes he's getting off track.

"Yeah, I got ya." Merle grumbles, and Lucretia's expression brightens a little, but it's still so soft. He reaches up and touches her cheek. "Still can't believe you look like this."

That flusters her, and for a second she looks stricken, before she covers his hand with her own.

"Thank you, Merle. I hope you take what I said to heart."

"I'll think on it." Merle says, and hops off the stool. He follows the hall, up the stairs, which he doesn't think were small enough to give him ease of travel before, but he guesses it changes. He doesn't know, it's the Astral Plane, maybe they're psychic ghost stairs. It's quiet. Out in front, Julia and Magnus are playing with the horde of dogs, and it's almost as if the crowd of them has multiplied, because there are definitely more out there than there were last time he checked.

He climbs the stairs, and up there the library is silent. A filmy yellow light filters in through the windows, through the gauzy blinds he thinks Lucretia must have needlepointed flowers into. The curtains are patterned beautifully with silk forget me nots. Blue and white, of course. Those were always her favorites. He remembers the Ice Plane, how he had a small pot of them on the Starblaster, coaxed into life from a few freeze dried seeds. A weak smile crosses his lips at the memory, and Merle tugs at his beard, fingers combing through it. A small part of him won't admit it, but he's looking for John, and it's as if John had left the cabin early, departing to some part of the island away from the eyes of its' other occupants. Down the stairs, he goes, and he can spot Lucretia stoking the fire. She has a new mug of tea in her hands, and it smells floral. That's herbal tea, he knows it. Maybe their talk had her feeling sentimental.

She spots him coming down the stairs, and her eyes train on him like a hawk. "If you're looking for John, he's down by the docks." As he usually seemed to be. Merle isn't sure what he's been doing out there, a short distance from the cabin.

Merle gathers a woolen coat from the rack closest by the door; it smells old, but it's soft and it fits him perfectly. The coat rack is a beautiful shade of mahogany, and it sure as hell wasn't there the last time he checked either. He chalks it up to more Astral Plane ghost bullshit, but in a way he's glad, because that means it's becoming more like home to him.

He finds John at the docks, and from what he can tell, the human doesn't realize Merle's creeping up behind him until the dock creaks underfoot. That gets him to pause what he's doing, and whirl to face him. "Merle, I- I, I thought you were staying inside," He says, and that strikes Merle as suspicious as all hell. He's hiding his hands behind his back, and that pricks Merle's interest as well. "I do, well, have something for you. Close your eyes." Merle pulls a face, but closes his eyes, and John's hands slip around his head, and he inhales the scent of John's clothes, soap, dirt, flowers. Flowers? He doesn't get a chance to think about it because they're walking, and John is guiding him toward an unknown destination.

John's hands are rougher than he anticipated, when they cover his eyes. "Alright, easy, now. I got little legs, you gotta go a little slower." Merle reminds him, and his stride eases up a little. Merle's hands go over John's, and he's surprised that John's hands are still just as freezing as before. How long had he been out here? He wasn't kidding when he said he preferred outside. He pauses, taking in the smell of John's hands, and it stands out to him only because they smell like dirt, like good earthy soil. It gives his heart a twist, and Merle squeezes John's hands, and a second later they're stopping. The ground underfoot doesn't crunch, and that is enough to perk up Merle's ears. John's fingers slip from his cheeks, and it takes a second to adjust to the dim, the wind rushing through his hair, his beard, and on it a floral scent, mixing with the ozone burnt gunpowder smell of souls. Merle's eyes widen when he takes it in. Laid out in front of him is a twelve by ten foot area fenced in with saplings woven into a latched gate. It's low enough for him to get into easily. This was thoughtfully made, and Merle can't believe what he's looking at..

"John, what-? What the-" Merle begins and can't get the rest of the words out. He steps, gingerly forward, hands curling around the gate. The saplings, he notes, are also alive and growing. The fence is made of healthy trees, and there's vines woven through the saplings, keeping them together. He's breathless, swinging the gate open. Underfoot is soft loam, the kind of thing you'd find on Faerun, and a loose smile crosses his mouth, and he's puzzled, but his heart is throbbing in his chest, and his stomach is in knots, and he opens his mouth to tell John how much this gift means to him, and all that comes out is a croak.

It's… a garden. A garden. There's the beginnings of a rose bush, trimmed down. He recognizes it as Rosa Rugosa. There's bougainvilleas, his favorite. There's a jasmine shrub, and the scent makes Merle's heart plummet to his feet, and he turns to stare at John. "Did you do this?" He takes a step into the path carved between the rows of flowers, little stepping stones set into the sand. "Where did you find all these?"

John sets his shoulders. "It was Lucretia's idea. Magnus helped. One of the many things they said about you, Merle."

Merle huffs out a laugh, fingertips brushing the creeping jasmine, working the flowers through his fingers, before letting them spring back into place. "I don't know whether I should be scared or flattered."

The way John stands, it's as if he's surprised he managed to keep something alive this long, but there's a quiet pride in his stance, and Merle sidles on up next to him. "You know, I'll get to their thank-yous soon enough, but you didn't have to do this for me. I'd-"

"You were struggling, Merle. I could see it clear as day." John's looking out at the horizon, and the sky glitters with a thousand glimmering souls, and for a moment he could swear he's back on Faerun, standing in his garden, the heady scent of jasmine filling the otherwise stagnant (and still chilly) air. The flowers were out of season, drastically so, but he thinks that doesn't really count for anything in the Astral Plane.

His thoughts drift to John, and how exactly he found these, and he scrubs his hand across his eyes, knocking his glasses out of the way to fight the burning tears that come to his eyes. His arms rest over the fence, and he's looking up at John.

"I'm gonna have to get you back for this, you know."

John doesn't look at him, but he settles beside him, back against one of the sturdier trees that made up the fence. His hands are tucked into his pockets, and it's the most relaxed Merle has ever seen him. "I like to think of it like a gift, Merle. Now this is paradise for you too."

"Funny choice of words," he remarks, but Merle isn't laughing. He tips his head to the side. John's phrasing was odd, but he won't pass any judgement just yet. "Is it paradise for you?"

"The jury's still out on that one." John says, elbows leaned back on the fence, and Merle chuckles. He reaches out and puts his hand on John's arm.

"Thank you. I mean that."


	5. Chapter 5

Is it paradise for you? The question lingers in the back of his mind for days. Every time he spots John out on the dock, it echoes again and again. From where he tends his garden, he can see home, and John and the horizon like two ships in the night, or whatever the saying was. He does not leave the shore until he is exhausted, only staring at where the sun should be, where it looks the same as it always has, silver on silver on silver, the distant spread of something like stars up in the sky, drifting along, the only true measure of the passage of time He knows, because he's watched John plod on home, hesitating with every step, like he doesn't want to leave, but he's too tired to stay. It's weird that he gets tired, here, of all places. That Merle is able to see exhaustion in his features, folding the way they do into familiar frown lines, into crinkles in his brow that the dwarf's studied for years upon years every parlay. Merle wants to know what he's waiting for. Merle questions it, one day, as he's pruning the rose bush. "What's the verdict?" Merle says, loosely, carefully prying a flower off its stem. He twists it in his fingers, just watching the petals dance.

John's back is to him, elbows up on the fence on the other side. He's studying the horizon again. "Still holding out on that." He's quiet, almost too quiet, and when he hears Merle approach, he gathers his hands up off the fence. Like he doesn't want Merle to touch him. That strikes him, again, as something that hurts, and he squints behind his glasses, watching John's face shift near imperceptibly, into something that seems sad, but he can't be entirely sure. Either way, it's making Merle frown, just a little, out of sympathy or something.

"Here," Merle holds out the flower, a red bud the size of his fist, curled inward, a new bud, not yet flowered. The first bud of the plant. It reminds him of John, in a way, closed off, hiding that beautiful golden center, the dip inward that holds the very core of him, the seed of his being. That makes his frown lessen, even if it's ever so slight, a twitch up of his lips. John accepts it without a word, and that's satisfactory enough, Merle thinks, even if his arms are crossed over his chest, the flower crushed in his palm ever so delicately, a brief moment of scent, herbaceous sweet rose twisted in John's fingers. Something about that sets Merle on edge, and he wonders if he did something wrong. It twists through his chest and stomach, and Merle's mouth curls down. He takes his glasses off to clean them on his shirt, and looks at John, peering over the fence at him, trying to get a good glimpse of his face. "Who are you waiting for?" It comes out of his mouth like a torrential downpour.

John's expression doesn't change, but his voice dips low. "The Island changes, subtly, every day."

"Yeah," Merle says, more roughly than he intends, "I figured that out already. What's your point?" He's working his mouth, getting more than a little tired of John's shit.

"I keep expecting someone to come back to the Island and take me away somewhere else." John's voice does not waver, and it remains steady the whole sentence. It's only after that he lets the facade crack. "I expect it to be a mistake, that I haven't earned any of this." That takes him by surprise, the honesty, and Merle's heart twists, just a little bit, but he doesn't really know what to say, so he plays it by ear.

"Maybe you haven't. Pan knows all the shit I've raked up in my day, but that doesn't mean you can't be here now." Merle slips his glasses back on and blinks at him. For a brief moment, the reflection of the silver Sea and the silver sky, just a touch lighter, blend together in a swirl of silver on silver and he can't see where the sea ends and the sky begins. It gives him a queasy sense of vertigo, and his toes grip the inside of his boots, trying to stay upright. He focuses his attention on the garden, on the solid dirt and ground, on what he knows , only looking to John when he speaks.

"We're friends , aren't we, Merle?" John asks, stilted in his wording. Merle looks at him funny, and he's trying to pinpoint what the hell John's getting at. He steps away from the human, away from the fence, and he's mincing his way across the garden's stripes of color, eyes on the ground, through the aisles of green, green like John's eyes, green like… like a jungle rainforest, like the Jungle Plane, he remembers it vividly now, though not as vividly as he could, but that's his own fault for forcing those thoughts out of his head. That year was a blur, except for him, and for Davenport, who he is trying not to think about, nor about the parley that year, where he barely got a word in edgewise and there was a record breaking near immediate death. Not now, at least, when it's just him and John, who needs him, and who isn't going to set his insides on instant black fire the second he tries to say anything good about the Captain. He can feel them boring into him from where the human stands, John's eyes on his back as he picks at the flowers.

"Well, I wouldn't say we're not." Merle says without turning back to him. He's got his little bow legged legs bent, crouched low to examine the rose bush. His fingers rake through the dirt, making sure the roots aren't exposed from the wind. It's a loving brush of his fingertips, across the body of the plant, and he takes his time with it, stroking up the stem. His back is turned for a good while, and John shifts, hands closed over each other, forearms braced on the fence. "Why do you ask?"

"Am I here for you?" John asks, and he can't see Merle's expression, but the dwarf freezes, staring at the flowers in his hands. His fingers are grubby, under the nails dirty, but it's as natural to him as anything else. "You said it yourself, that I was the only person you couldn't save."

"You were here before I was, John." Uneasily, Merle responds. He doesn't like what John is insinuating, and he knows it's preposterous. Still, though, the conviction in his voice shakes Merle to his core. He thinks this must be what led so many people to listen to him, but he knows it's untrue. "I think you'd deserve this too. How long were you unhappy with existing?" His voice is gentle, and John's forehead wrinkles, but he's notangry , simply confused. "How long was it before you got everyone to agree with you?" Merle's staring at the horizon, and he's speaking from the heart. "Your whole life? John, that's no way to live. I'm sorry it happened to you, and I think this is everything making it up to you."

John falls silent at that, and stays quiet for a long moment. The wind blows between them, picking up some fallen jasmine petals, the white floating on the breeze and spreading the scent between them. Merle begins to walk his way, hands behind his back, taking careful precautions not to step on any of the flower beds. He can see when John leans his head down, letting his words soak in. Something in the stiff way he moves, like the movements of the bleak hopeless man he was once - and Merle knows that man, better than anyone else, he guesses - breaks Merle's heart, and when he steps close, he's pulling something green out from behind his back.

Merle presents him with a wreath of jasmine and when John lays eyes on him, he hefts a foot up onto the fence, and swings his little leg over it to steady himself. Merle comes to about John's height when he does, and the first thing Merle does is place the flower crown atop his dark hair. The creamy white of the flowers sticks out dramatically against the backdrop of John's mussed hair, and Merle laughs. "It's a good look." The sweet jasmine scent swirls around them, and the dwarf gives him a smile.

He tucks the somewhat crushed beach rose delicately into the dwarf's beard, cold fingers elegantly brushing through the length of it, down to the rough angles of his face. The magenta bloom offsets the russet color of his beard well, and Merle's grin widens. The petals are bruised, somewhat, but the rest of the flower is in good health. As soon as it tucks into his beard, it's blossom opens further, bruising fading a little. It's as if the second it touches him it's alive again, and John looks amazed, but it's an understated look, crossing his face for the briefest of flashes, and then it's gone, only to be replaced by a flat affect, gaze unrecognizable, the windblown flush across John's face standing out against his pale skin, the broken blood vessels from the terrible wind that blows off the Sea.

"We match." John's weathered face softens when he says it, but he's not smiling, and his fingers linger across Merle's cheekbone. It's as if time stands still for the both of them. Even the cold gale doesn't disturb them, and Merle's eyes are locked on his. The green is verdant, like the jasmine vines that coil about his temples. His grin breaks up, into something a little closer to surprise, and he lifts his hand to cover John's.

A sudden thought strikes him, an old memory, but clear as day. His wedding, round II; he thinks Davenport wore a flower crown, much similar. His was yellow. Gold alyssums, he's pretty sure, picked from around the beach where they grew wild. The thought sends an arrow through his heart, but he closes his stubby fingers around John's hand on his cheek, and squeezes. The way John looks at him burns, but it's a good burn, and it fills Merle with a heat all the way to his toes - which are square set in a pair of sage colored galoshes that fit him perfectly, courtesy of the Astral Plane. They aren't particularly his style, but they do well to keep out the cold and the damp of the beach. He had a pair like these once, on Faerun. He's pretty sure someone must have stolen them, because they vanished fairly quickly after. An inkling tells him it was Taako, but then, his heart gives a wrench remembering Taako. How time flies. It's a good memory, but even so, it was years and years ago. He wants to know if Taako remembers. Too bad he can't exactly ask at the moment.

A thought flits through his head, if maybe he could get letters smuggled out, like he's in the big house or something. This wasn't the Eternal Stockade, though, so maybe he could, if Kravitz was in a good mood, and if it wasn't anything too big or extravagant. He thinks about sending a letter to Davenport, but decides against it. He doesn't know what he could say to make the absence sting less, and he doesn't want to try in case he makes it worse.

The dogs don't go near the garden. They barely leave the perimeter of the house, and Merle thinks that's a little spooky, but they're astral dogs. He wonders about that too. Were they just really good dogs that died and got brought here? Or maybe they ran off the moon, and that's why they don't leave the cabin. He can almost hear Magnus now, accusing: "They're good dogs, Merle." The dogs don't go near John either, and he thinks it's the way he's standoffish, and Merle thinks he does it on purpose, to keep the others away, or they, like Lucretia, sense something is off about him.

But then again, Lucretia often tries to speak to him, and Merle's heard snatches of conversation when they're in the library, and the sound carries ever so gently down the stairs. It's not anything but kind when he does hear it. But Merle knows Magnus, and he knows Lucretia, and he's only known Julia for a month but he has a hunch she's just as friendly as Magnus, as loving, as good a judge of character as Lucretia. They're chipping away at John's marble exterior just as he is, 'cept they're using fine tip chisels and little brushes and he's using a sledgehammer. Only problem is the sledgehammer runs the risk of damaging the soft inside. He's not sure if John could take it, but then again they have the rest of forever to figure it out.


	6. Chapter 6

John's room is attached to an observation deck, Merle discovers, a few weeks or so later, but who's counting, and a cold thought stops him dead. He worries, wondering if he asked for that to see whether a boat would be coming for him. He doesn't know if that's how they do that here. The Eternal Stockade doesn't exactly have a dock the way Burnsides Island does. He figures the Raven Queen wouldn't have given John a body if he was destined ultimately for ghost jail.

Merle only finds out when John does not come down the way he usually does.

His little legs take him up and up, past the gauzy cream curtains and their perfect little needlepoint forget me nots, past a room marked with a hammer whose door is closed and what he can see is a fire blazing, orange light lashing under the crack of the door, past a room with a huge bed, a beautiful quilt thrown over it, patterned in ducks and voidfish. He figures Lucretia's handiwork.

It's a dark room, Merle uncovers, no light under the door, and the door is locked. He raps at the door with the back of his worn knuckles, gold on the lacquered wood clicking where his ring hits it. There's no light beneath the door after he knocks either. He knocks again, and then there's motion from behind it. John swings the door open. Behind him is the only source of light, something like a telescope but huge. It throws John into darkness, the only source of light behind him, a fist sized circle of silver light like one spotlight shining to his back.

"You look like shit." Merle says, the instant he sees him. And he does. John does not look like he's slept in weeks, which Merle does note as weird that exhaustion exists here, but he digresses. John's barely dressed, his charcoal colored shirt half unbuttoned. His hair is a mess, falling into his eyes like he hadn't bothered to comb it back. The pale curve of his throat and down to his collarbone is distracting, his eyes blazing like twin green suns. His brow furrows in a way that seems both concerned and weary beyond all creation. All in all its a sight and Merle has trouble forming words for a moment, taking it all in. He swallows and opens his mouth to add more, finally getting his tongue to work again, but John interrupts.

"Thanks." John says, a hand creeping over the edge of the door, like he's ready to close it on him. "Did Julia send you to find me?"

"She made pancakes." Merle says with a tip of his head to the side, and he's waiting for John to say anything, mouth open in anticipation.

John doesn't respond, simply closes the door. Merle shuts his mouth, an uneasy breath brought up from his lungs. He cocks his head to the side, trying to hear what he's doing inside.

Merle pauses, anxiously, before banging on the door. It creaks open again, and John is standing there, dressed. There is no singular silver beam any longer. He's closed a thick curtain, hiding away his small window to outside. The dark woolen turtleneck is the least formal thing he's ever seen John in. It gives his heart a twist to know this about him. Of course, Merle almost prefers the unkempt look. He catches himself watching John run a hand through his hair. It's damp, and that takes him by surprise. It stays off the human's face like that, and John fixes him with a strange look.

"What's the matter?"

"Nah, it's, it's nothing." Merle waves him off, but he still comes off distracted, his mind otherwise occupied.

In the light, he notes the sweater is a dark forest green, and it brings out John's eyes. It almost matches Merle's galoshes, and that thought flits across his mind too fast to really follow, and it doesn't matter because John is distracting enough. He catches himself staring as John passes him in the hall. The hazy light, almost liquid as it sluices through the curtains, rays of white and gold illuminating the human in a way that's almost unearthly, falls yellow across John's face as he pauses to look back at the dwarf.

"You know, Magnus made this." He raises his hand to gesture to his sleeve, the way it rides up so casually, revealing the soft inside of his wrists, the way the tendons stand out like new saplings, the darkest blue of his veins, which, strangely enough, seem to pulse the way they did when he lived.

"I didn't think Magnus had the patience to knit." He responds, dark eyes locked on the way John's forearms are bared, the casual way he threw his sleeves up, rolled up to the elbows. Again, he's struck by just how much John has changed, has relaxed, simplified , almost, and it's as if he's become so much more vivid and alive than the last time he saw him, a hollow shell of a man.

"You'd be surprised at what could get done out here," John says, and darts down the stairs. Merle strides headlong after him, and he struggles to keep up for a moment, before John slows his gait to let the dwarf catch up. The kitchen is warm, and smells sweetly of dough rising, and of sunshine and joy.

John settles in across from Julia this time, and Merle slips in beside him. His elbow brushes John's more often than not, but each casual contact only serves to make John glance at him every time, and every time he can feel John's eyes on him. The only time he finds himself drawn to looking up at John is the very second Lucretia begins a story about Magnus and something about sneaking dogs onto the moon. He's not following the story as closely as he ought to, but that's because he spots John out the corner of his eye, lifting a glass of water to his lips, and when he swallows, before he glances at Merle, and pauses, taking a mildly amused look at him. Merle sits, transfixed.

The table falls silent, and Julia clears her throat, and Lucretia and Magnus share a look, before they all visibly shift to look at Merle and John.

"So, uh," Julia says, lifting her hand to her chin, surveying across the table. "Your flowers are blooming well. Why don't you head on outside and bring me back a bouquet for the table when you're done?" An expression of a hidden grin, thinly veiled glee crosses her face just for a brief moment. Lucretia gives her a nudge under the table, and Julia hides her smile, rolling her lips between her teeth. Merle knows where he's not wanted for whatever reason or another, and hops off his seat. He toes into his galoshes, and hefts his, well, the cabin's woolen coat, one he's just borrowing for the interim, however long the Astral Winter lasts, across his shoulders, and casts a look to John, as if to ask if he was going to join the dwarf outside.

The weather is as dark and as gloomy as it has always been, and Merle doesn't find that any less of a reason to stay indoors. He goes for a walk with John, out to the garden. The flowers have begun to bloom, and he was thinking about taking some in for Julia. Brighten up the house a little more. It was something like adding his own touch to the place, more so than what the Astral Plane had up it's sleeves in regards to adjusting to his short stature and other habits.

"You can't crush these like the roses," Merle adds, as he very carefully eases John's hand open, and placing a bouquet of bougainvilleas into his open palm. His hand is warm, cupping John's knuckles. "They're toxic." The crinkle of soft paper gets John's attention when he closes his fingers around the stems. "Remind me of you, actually. Nice to look at - they're my favorite actually - but if you break the stems or mess with the thorns, you get a burning sap all over your fingers. Now," Merle looks up at John, and he's got a playful look on his face. "I'm not going around breaking you or anything, but you're full of something like toxic sap. You always were. The trick is not to cut too deeply when you're handling them. Or use gloves, but I've got a handle on liquid plant secretions."

"Thank you." John replies, in a dry whisper. "I guess I could say the same of you and the roses." Merle brightens at that. "They're hardy, do well in adversity." John gestures to the bushes where they've grown to line one side of the fence, and Merle can see his fingers are littered in small scars. From vicious thorns, he thinks. Why John didn't use gloves is beyond his understanding, but Merle takes his hand in his own, closing his fingers around John's frigid digits. He's still not sure why John is always so cold, but he figures it's something about his human sensitivities, more than anything else. Even though they're just souls now, inhabiting something like shells of their former selves. "And they have a bit of a bite if you handle them too roughly."

A boisterous laugh escapes the dwarf, and he closes his hand tight around John's, fingers folding over the line of John's thumb. "A bit of a bite, huh? Or maybe you're just not being careful enough, buddy." He scrubs his hand over John's knuckles, lingering there to try and hazard a chance at warming up John's hand. He's not sure if it's working, but John's fingers flex, and the corners of his lips lift. "Roses don't burn your skin if you handle them improperly."

"Then maybe we're something like the same, yet different," John says, gaze gathering across the garden. His hand tenses in Merle's but he doesn't pull away like last time. It's as if he's forcing his eyes from the horizon, and the worry is taking its toll on him. Merle squeezes his hand, and hopes somehow that it'll help. It's a silence that settles between them, the wind picking up around the two of them, carrying the green scent of fresh soil and roses and jasmine on the wind, swirling and mingling with the smell of chimney smoke, and of the Astral Sea and the cold cold sand around them.

John finally, finally lifts his gaze back to Merle's and his green eyes are blazing, and they ignite a spark in him that he can't seem to put out, no matter how hard he concentrates. Something about it is familiar, the sensation of burning up from the inside out, but this time he likes it. Its a pleasant burn, and he thinks he might like the result, if only John would just smile at him one more time.

Merle's gaze carries back to the cabin, and he can see the dogs circling the perimeter aimlessly as they always do, and they always bark and play the way pack animals are wont to do, but this time there's a piercing howl that cuts through the midday-midnight air like a siren, and then several howls as the other dogs join in. A chorus of them, then all, just, howling . His hair stands on end at the eerie sound, and he looks to John, who seems just as puzzled. There's a flash of fear on his face, cold, pallid, a ghastly death, and his hand is frozen on Merle's and Merle knows the instant he stills. There's no boat at the front dock, but down at the end of the beach path, a few yards from the cabin, there are reapers . Four of them, each nearly indistinguishable from the other three. His stomach drops, and every part of his gut twists into knots.

"Merle," John says, he begs , and he's afraid, and it cuts Merle down, right to the very core of him. His hand tightens on Merle's, and Merle laces their fingers together.

Wait a second. He pauses, realizing there's a fifth person there, who appeared from nowhere, who seems to have blink ed into existence, there on the gravel path to the cabin. He knows that figure, he's remembered it for centuries. Angular, brightly colored like a poison dart frog, tipped with a tall pointed hat. The way the figure stands, hip cocked to the side, an arm draped over one of the reapers' shoulders. Looking very much alive, and very much not like he belongs here, looking as ageless as he did when Merle saw the elf last, months ago.

Taako? What in the Hell was Taako doing here?


	7. Chapter 7

Merle doesn't release John's hand until he hears John inhale again. He seems wobbly on his feet, and there's something stilled in John's core, like the deep silence of the bottom of a well. "We should go back inside."

John doesn't say anything, but the brisk singular nod he gives in response is answer enough. His mouth is pinched, and Merle can tell he's trying to swallow, but the lump in his throat is stopping him. John is hurting, and he wants to reach out and take him in his arms like last time, but this time, he's not going to let go . John's gaze is lowered, and he looks scared, and Merle has not seen him look like this since the Day of Story And Song, and it is breaking his heart. He catches a glimpse of John looking out at the garden, and he can almost hear the way John's breath catches in his throat. He reaches out for John's hand again, and this time John takes it unflinchingly. He laces their fingers together, and Merle squeezes just the once.

"They can't just take you without due process, I don't think. That's not how this works. You didn't do any ghost crimes, or necromancy or anything." Merle says, and he manages to sound at least a little reassuring, because John looks at him, and holds his gaze for a good few moments, green eyes like ivy against the silver backdrop of the Astral Sea, and of his mournful pallor. Merle can feel John's pulse throb in between his fingertips.

"Does that matter?" John can barely manage a croak, his voice thin, quavering.

Merle wants to tell him they'll get through this, but really, what does he know? The dwarf drags John, carefully, back to the cabin. They linger on the back steps for a good few minutes, John at the bottom of them, and Merle at the top, where their faces line up much better. He wonders if this is the last time he'll see John. Merle's eyes drop, low, following the line of John's form, the sharp angles of him, before reaching out and taking John's face in his rough palm. John's eyes flit to his, worriedly, but he doesn't say anything, his bruised and bitten bottom lip standing out, where he'd been chewing at it in anxious fear. Merle's thumb brushes against it, and this time he has John's full attention.

"Merle," he gasps, again, just the merest hint of fear, of desperation in his voice. If Merle closed his eyes now, it would be so easy to believe he was back there in the parlay where John's form was lashed with stripes of opal-on-oil, where the Hunger tore him away for the last time. Where he hesitated, just a moment too long, before John was lost. The urge to kiss him was stronger than ever.

Merle pulls John to him, eyes heavily lidded, and tips John's face to his own. He exhales once, slowly, before raising his dark eyes to John's. John was not staring as he usually does. In fact, his eyes are shut, tight, a wrinkle between his brows like he's concentrating, or he's flinching , and his mouth has fallen open, lips cracked and bloody. It strikes Merle as odd that blood exists out here, but he forces that thought out of his head. He presses his forehead to John's and his other hand comes up to cradle the rough angle of John's jaw. There's a brief burst of pain on John's face, before it's quashed down, and when he takes in a breath, his lips are trembling. Merle is longing to know what they taste like.

There's a rap, hesitant in its' own way, at the backdoor and when Merle looks up, there stands Lucretia. She looks stone-faced, and through the lacing of the screen door, Merle can't really tell what she's thinking. Merle's face burns, the way windblown skin does, hotter than anything else he's ever felt, and he loosely releases John's face. John keels backward, spine up against the wood railing of the steps. He looks like he's going to be sick.

"I think you both should come inside."

Inside there's an air of anticipation, though Merle couldn't say whether it was good or bad. John's teetering on his feet, eyes still screwed shut. Merle has to all but lead him through the door, into the kitchen where Magnus and Lucretia are, their cups of tea abandoned. Where it's warm, and where it seems to have expanded, like it's being seen through a fishbowl lens, to allow the four reapers to stand, fastidiously in the doorway. Or maybe it was a trick the reapers could do, fudging the laws of reality to fit them in better. They cut an intense figure, and Merle's heart almost stopped in his chest. Not that it matters, since he, you know, is already super dead. He almost can't breathe, and some dim dark place in his head remarks how funny that is that he can't breathe, because his lungs don't need it anyway, because they're in the ground in Faerun, feeding his garden.

His stomach is in knots, and it only starts to loosen when he hears Taako's voice from down the hall, cut right through the tension. Something about it puts him at ease, and he's hoping hard that the elf isn't dead.

"Jules, darling, I love what you've done with the place. It's so much more homey than the last time I've been here. I hope Mango's been keeping things nice and easy for you, and I'm sure you get along well enough with Lucy. And the flowers? Beautiful . You have to get Merle to tell me his secret."

He can hear Julia say something soft in response as she guides him through the cabin, and the way Taako laughs sends a sharp pain through his chest. He missed the elf, more than he thought he would. He elbows his way through the Reapers, who part like so much shadow, and when he stands before the other two dead humans, his expression curls into something like ecstatic delight.

"Now how about that , Bubbeleh." Taako says, and sweeps his arm around Magnus, coming at him in something like a leisurely jog. The human lifts him off his feet easily, enfolding him into his arms. He leans into Magnus' chest, and behind him there's Lup, hair like an inferno. Barry crowds in, and then a pop, and the reaper nearest the door turns into a familiar young man. "Angus!" Lucretia cries, and gathers him in, both arms sweeping tight around his shoulders. His hands reach for Lucretia's back, and he returns the embrace.

Merle is there in the doorway, and Taako hugs him first. Sweeps him up and hugs him. Merle laughs, uneasily. "You know, for a second I was afraid, you know…"

"What, that we're here to cart you to off to Gay Baby Ghost Hell Jail?" Lup asks, and is the one to hug him next. She's burning hot, right down to the sharp angles of her bones. He can feel them through her physical form, like the burning is coming from those first, then through her layers of flesh. Barry seems sheepish beside her when he gives Merle a one-armed hug, but he doesn't feel full of roaring flame the way Lup does.

"I said it would be less of a shock if we showed up normally, but of course, we have to be the flashiest dead folks here."

"You appreciate it too, Bear." Lup says, her elbow tucked in the gap of Barry's own.

"Maybe I do," he responds, quietly.

Taako settles somewhere between Magnus and the well dressed skull face beside him, and when Taako reaches for the reaper's hand, he laughs. "Babe, you're forgetting something." He gestures to his face like he's got a little schmutz there or something and with a dull pop, there stands Kravitz, shoulders sinking. He looks more embarrassed than anything else, but the smooth way Taako fits his hand into the reaper's is sweet.

"You gotta be the worst of the worst to get into the Eternal Stockade, you know." Barry says, nudging his glasses higher onto his face. "It also helps if you've got friends in high places."

Merle casts a look at John, and he doesn't seem to have relaxed a bit. He takes John's hand, thumb scraping across his palm, and that gets him to wake up a little, snapping out of the trance he was in.

"So why are you all here then? You gave me a heart attack."

"Can't do that if you're dead," Barry reminds him, and Merle hazards a nervous laugh.

"You can't possibly have forgotten, sir. I know this is the Astral Plane, and memory always goes a bit fuzzy here, but already?" Angus asks, and Merle pulls a face, before coming to a stark realization, his gut going cold at the fact that he couldn't remember.

"Happy birthday!" The Reapers cry, and John looks like he's about to collapse in relief. Merle tightens his grip on him, and starts to laugh, shaking his head.

"Are you serious?" He shoves his glasses out of the way and wipes at his eyes with the heel of his palm, and Merle's mouth twists a little. "I was scared to death, you guys."

"That's the kind of reaction we like to see when we land." Lup says, more amused than her companions. Barry really does seem kind of repentant, and Angus is curious, but his eyes have not left John. Kravitz, also, eyes John, more than a little suspiciously. The human has relaxed somewhat, and his hand drifts from Merle's, but he is tense.

"I can't believe you forgot your own birthday," Taako says. "Also Cap'n'port says hello, gives his regards, whatever you old fogies say."

"Taako, you're almost as old as I am," Merle responds, patiently.

"Yeah, but a, I'm an elf, and b, you're toast, mi amigo." Taako says, and gives him a cheeky grin. "I'm allowed to mess with you about your birthday, you senile old man, you're like my dad ."

"Wow, thanks ," Merle says, and Taako whips out a small package, wrapped haphazardly in twine and old paper. He'd have to save the old paper for Lucy or something. It would be a good, useful thing to do. Or maybe compost.

"I know you can't really use much out here, since the Astral Plane is supposed to take care of everything for you, but I figured, why not. I got bone daddy and Raven Mom to okay it, too, so… Here." Taako places the package, which seems to be about the size of a book, in Merle's hands. "I asked Davenport for some advice as to what we should get you, so this is as much from him as it is from me."

Merle shakes the package and it rattles. He frowns, thinking, as he unwraps it. It's several small envelopes of seeds, labeled, tied together neatly. He's amazed, looking through the seeds and the names. It's every kind of seed from every plant from his garden on Faerun." Merle fights it, but his breath chokes in his throat, and his voice is thick when he remarks: "Damn. Dav's really got me pegged, doesn't he?"

"I truly am sorry he couldn't be here for you," Kravitz says, and his voice is soothing, and Merle figures that's what Taako likes about him. He finds the same sort of cadence in John's voice sometimes, and that's relaxing in of itself. "The Raven Queen insisted, though. No mortals on the Astral Plane."

"What about Taako then?" Magnus asks, jerking a thumb the elf's direction. Taako is half draped across him as it is, one arm hooked around Kravitz', their fingers laced, and the other elbow cast thrown on Magnus' broad shoulder. Julia's on the other side of Lucretia and she doesn't seem to mind the contact.

The reaper casts a sideways look at Taako. "He's an exception."

"We, uh, disguised him as Lup to get him here." Barry says, after a pause. "Don't tell the Raven Queen."

"Pretty sure she already knows, Barry, dear." Taako says, without batting an eye. "Krav's her favorite kid, I think I could do some real bad Death Crimes, and she still wouldn't do anything about it. 'Course, I won't , Krav, " Taako tightens his grip on the reaper's hand and gives him a look that just seems to last between the two of them, "But, I think she allowed it because I'm an Elf, and we're just, y'know, special like that."

"Oh, right. Please, tell me more about your special elfness while we set the table." Magnus comments, dryly, and Merle holds in a snort. "John, you're welcome to help, if you promise you won't faint at the sight of the Death Cops."

He did look like he was about to, and Merle nodded toward the table, giving John some encouragement. "I told you it'd be okay, remember? Trust me."

John instead closes both hands around the packet of seeds. "I can take these out to the garden for you, if you'd like."

Merle's mouth twitches, and he wants to tell him no , that those seeds were special from Davenport, and it meant something to him that went beyond just a box of seeds. Those were from Faerun, from his home he shared with his husband , but the words don't come. Instead he smiles, knowing John does not want to be here with the rest of Merle's family, people he knows he's caused endless destruction to, endless pain to, for years and years and years. "Yeah. You can do that."


	8. Chapter 8

The day passes like every other, much too quickly for Merle's old man tastes. He fights the urge to ask about Davenport. He knows it'll hurt if he finds out, and it'll hurt if he thinks about it any longer than necessary. The way Barry looks at him it's as if he knows the loss, the way his heart longs for someone beyond the veil.

Even then, the way Barry looks at Lup, it's the wondrous regard of a man staring at the stars, the moon. A distant unreachable thing, and it's here in his grasp. Merle envies him in a way, but then again, he'd never admit it.

The day passes, and yet the sky is gray, mournfully, the souls drifting overhead like so many unknown constellations, sky an immutable backdrop as they float on. The house is quiet. Only the distant creaks of the house settling, wind blowing it back and forth. They can hear the wind howling outside, and it makes Merle want to brew some tea to get some warmth back into the kitchen, and back into themselves. Lup and Lucretia had gone upstairs after most of the real festivities ended, and he's pretty sure they're not coming back down for at least a few hours. It's been a while since Lup had seen the occupants of Burnsides Island.

The cabin is quiet, and there's a fire in the stove, flames licking away at the logs within. It's a cozy heat, and Merle takes the time to relax as he offers Barry a mug of tea, before sitting across from him. Barry is regarding him carefully, like he's stuck watching Merle and there's some small something that keeps biting at him.

"I didn't even get a chance to mourn, Merle." Barry says, quietly, all of a sudden. Merle stares. He's not sure what Barry is saying this in reference to, but he listens, dubiously. His fingers are laced across the table, elbows up on the shining surface. His cup of tea - black, no sugar, no cream, no lemon - sits untouched to his left. "She was there one second, and the next she was gone. Every moment I spent alive, I couldn't even remember her face." He opens his mouth to add more, but he chokes. "Memory is a powerful tool, Merle. Don't underestimate it, or, or blow it off because it's not the real thing ." Barry's fingers close around the rim of his glasses and he adjusts them, maintaining eye contact with the dwarf in front of him. "It's the distance that's the problem, and I can assure you Davenport is feeling something like this. Separation is hard, Merle, and I'm sorry, but you have my deepest sympathy."

"I don't need sympathy, really," Merle begins, and he's fiddling with his own teacup. "It's nice, and I can say thank you and really mean it, but I don'twant to mourn. They're all doing enough mourning out there."

Barry considers it, mouth a thin line. "Do you feel guilty for enjoying the Astral Plane? Or is it for forgetting?"

Merle freezes in place. "The Astral Plane does that, doesn't it? Makes it easy to forget?" Outside he can see Magnus and Kravitz holding a conversation on the deck, but he can't hear what they're saying. Magnus has an elbow up on the window pane, and his thick fingers are tracing the carved hearts on the shutters. He looks back at Kravitz, whose own hands are tucked into his pockets, and he looks like he's considering something, whatever Magnus is telling him. Down further is Julia, John and Taako, sweeping down the rows of the garden. Taako is animated, gesticulating pointedly at the empty rows where they haven't planted anything yet and Jules is nodding appreciatively. John seems pensive, and Merle catches him sneaking a gaze back to the cabin, expression searching. He must be thinking about the seeds. He can't exactly see Angus, so he guesses the kid must have left early. Well, Angus isn't a kid anymore, but the sentiment still stands. He's a kid compared to Merle, even if he's all but immortal now, and Merle is, well, dead as hell.

He finds someone (though, Merle suspects John) has put together a small pot, filled with dirt, and it sits on the window sill, looking out the back, towards the garden. It's labeled with a tag, tied to twine around the base, in a small neat print, not at all ostentatious or messy the way Merle knows anyone else here writes, and it says For Lucretia . Merle finds himself staring at it, hand on his fist, elbow up on the table. They don't talk about it. He doesn't know why, but the topic doesn't come up. He gets the feeling, though, that there's new baby seeds in there, down under a healthy layer of dirt. He can feel it, in his bones. His ghost bones, really.

Barry puts his hand on Merle's arm, and squeezes. It's gentle, and it's the most intimate thing he's ever seen Barry do in a hundred years. He's reminded, suddenly of centuries ago. Merle shoots him a smile, as if to apologize for getting distracted. "The nature of the Astral Plane is to disentangle you from… life, so to speak." He shifts in his seat, and his hand withdraws just a little, until Merle covers it with his own broad one, short little fingers curling around the Reaper's palm. Barry's gaze drops, and he's lowering his eyes in thought. "Usually, it just leaks out around the Astral Sea surrounding the Eternal Stockade, since content souls are complacent ones, and it's hard to stay emotionally volatile when you're something like a blank slate. All those thoughts turn into white noise."

"Is that new?" Merle asks, only half joking. "Something like a security procedure?"

"It was Lup's idea." He beams, faintly, and dips his head, embarrassed. Merle is surprised by this. It's been, what, centuries? Or maybe it was him.

Barry tries to withdraw his hand, and apologizes. Merle lets him this time. "She had the idea for years. Only just recently got to test the hypothesis. The dead retain their memories, so the worst offenders getting it all taken away prevents them from getting resurrected since they won't be willing to return to reformed bodies if they can't remember their life before."

"Huh." Merle says. It does sound interesting, and it has its merits, but he's worried about the memory loss thing. Especially, given his, and John's circumstances, and their prior memory erasing shenanigans. Something in his chest shifts, and burns, and it turns his stomach. "You, you think that'll work?"

"Well, what's the worst that could happen?" Barry says, cheerfully, unaware of the damning thing he just said.

A whole slew of things, Barry , he wants to say, but doesn't. Instead, Merle holds his tongue on that, a hand working across his mouth. He combs his fingers through his beard. "Do you think as time goes by, the effects will get worse or spread?"

That line of thinking takes Barry by surprise. "There'll be some drifting here, regardless of what we do, Merle. Souls aren't, aren't necessarily built the way our flesh brains, our meaty parts are. We feel , yes, but there's different kinds of constraints to being corporeal that aren't there when we'renot . There's gonna be some forgetting either way, Merle. That's just how it works."

"Try not to give Merle an existential crisis, Bear." Lup's voice calls from up the stairs. Lucretia's voice follows, hushed, something he can't catch, but Barry is watching the stairs intently, and two synchronized laughs bubble up. Their boots click neatly as they come down. "The Astral Plane is home plate for incorporeal forms, Merle. Any time you get actual people involved there's gonna be unforeseen consequences, and that's not necessarily bad , unlike what Mr. Doom and Gloom is suggesting." Lup adds, coming over to drape herself across Barry's shoulders like an errant housecat, arms slung across his chest from behind. "It's just a variable you gotta work around sometimes, not something scary."

"Thanks," he replies, dryly. Lucretia comes to the table, and pulls up a seat between Merle's and Barry. She reaches across the table to where Merle's hand sits, and covers it with her own.

"I know ," she's hesitant, and a pain shows across her features. "I know not remembering is scary. But it's not all memories, just the painful ones, just what you leave behind."

Merle focuses his eyes on her, and she holds his gaze, unflinching. "Maybe you got lucky, and all the people you love are dead already, but my kids, my, my- Davenport is up there, Lucy. And I can't just forget him."

Her mouth curls down at the nickname but she doesn't comment on it. "The good memories linger, and everyone will end up on the Astral Plane at some point or another." She glances at Barry and Lup. "Reunions will happen, but in time , Merle. Patience is key."

Magnus returns, a smile still caught upon his face, and he wedges the door open to let Kravitz through, followed by Taako who gives him, no, the both of them, a look. Merle shifts in his seat to see if John is coming back in, but he can see him, outside beside Julia. They're both staring out to the Astral Sea, their backs turned away from the window. John does not look back, and neither does Julia. Merle wonders what it is they're watching for, and longs to hear what it is they're talking about.

Kravitz catches the eye of his fellow reapers, and tips his head to the side, as if to suggest they go. Lup pushes up from the seat, chair legs dragging across the floor with a groan of wood on wood, and she pauses to wait for Barry. Kravitz' face melts into a skull, like sugar in hot water, and Merle catches a flash of fire before Lup's head is engulfed in flame, her own skull glowing through like her flesh had only been makeup and the day-glo bone of her true face had always shone through. "Angus went on ahead, but we've got to catch up. There's something we-"

"Yeah, yeah, bone daddy. RQ business, we got ya." Taako demures, and wraps his arms around Kravitz. "See you later, babe. Have fun, I guess, ghost-busting. I gotta go too, Merle. Have fun with the rest of forever without me. Try not to have too much fun before I get back."

Lup casts a look to Merle at Taako's words, and grins. It sends a shiver through him, despite the fact that he knows it's Lup, and it's an expression he's seen on her regular face a billion times, and reflected on Taako's a million times more, which he guesses is the intention. He wants to know what it must look like to actual ghost criminals, up to no good. "Was good catching up with you, Merle. We'll be around again eventually, I think." She nods to Barry, whose face became a skull too quick to see, and that gives Merle a start. "Should get goin', Bear."

"It was really good to see you again, Merle." Barry says, and closes a hand around his arm. Merle watches as his skin seems to have evaporated instantly, and it's simply bone. He's not sure if it's because he's dead that they can touch him, or if it's because they're Reapers now. He gives Barry a smile, and Barry seems to return it, but the nuances of small expression changes are lost because he's a fucking skull.

Lucretia and Magnus walk them out, but Merle sticks behind for a couple of seconds, just gathering himself to see them off. He's pretty sure the Reapers (or Taako, for that matter) can't just pop in and out of the cabin, like there's some sort of block to it. He wonders if it's something the Raven Queen decided to do, or if there's some other reason. It makes him think about John, as if maybe its a precaution to stop any potential unrequested reaping of the human. He finds that might be more of a step up than anything else, really.

There is a tree, Merle discovers, the second he steps outside, the wind chill biting into the bare stripe of flesh across his face uncovered by beard. After the Reapers make their final goodbyes, and he watches them take their path down the front dock, and vanish with a shimmer and a pop, he makes his way to the tree. It's tall, but slender, the bark healthy and unblemished. It somehow seems to have sprouted overnight, flowering completely out of season bright fuchsia blossoms that dangle, blowing about in the breeze, and the thick cloyingly sweet fragrance fills the air. Merle almost expects bees to be flitting around the buds. Maybe the Astral Plane pulled some more ghost bullshit. It's nice, though. A black locust tree. It makes him think of home, of Faerun, and a smile pulls across his face as he meanders across the sand, hands stuffed into his pockets.

The foliage, flowers and leaves, hangs heavy, and the pale green of the leaves reminds him of John. He wishes he could see the way the sun would dapple through the branches, painting the ground below in browns and golds, but of course. No sun. It's both a blessing and a curse, he thinks. He can't tell what time it is, but then again, there is no time in the Astral Plane, not when right now stretches to forever. The only possible measurement of time is the glinting of distant souls, suspended in the sky like stars, but even they drift ever so slowly, too slow to see with the naked eye, and to measure them without the proper equipment would be hard.

Davenport could do it, Merle thinks, suddenly. If he had the kind of observatory John had, he could pull it off.

It occurs to him he doesn't know much about what John did after his second chance, after he returned to his home plane. Why John would want or need an observatory escapes him, but he makes a note to ask him at some point. Something in his chest twists when he wonders if John studied the stars the way Davenport did to travel them, to try to see him again. A morbid thought comes to him that maybe that's what killed him. Merle sucks in a breath, trying to count and see how old John was when he passed, whether that was a normal age for humans to die. When he discovers he doesn't really know how old John was. Fifty? Fifty five? He said he only lived another fifteen years. That wasn't very long, even by human standards.

He turns his gaze toward the human as he hears him walk up, even gearing up to ask him, though he knows the words will die on his tongue, bitter and unsaid. Behind them, Julia has gone to take Magnus' hand, and to ask him about Taako, presumably, from what he could hazard from the few snatches of conversation he could catch, as they head in, and Merle can see Lucretia watching the Sea for a good few seconds, wistfully, before hurrying, head bowed, back inside.

John stands there, before the tree. A few feet away, but beside him nonetheless. He closes his eyes, as if imagining the sunlight shining through the branches, like molten gold across his features, the heat warming across his face, comforting and bright. Merle finds he misses that too. Behind them the Astral Sea makes it's quiet rush against the sand, but Merle is surprised to realize he's not cold. His galoshes leave small footprints that quickly fill with what looks like water, and in an instant he's back on Bottlenose Cove, and when he turns to the dock he'll see Davenport tying off his sailboat, hopping down into the sticky damp sand, except he's not. And this is the Astral Plane, where Merle reaches out to take John's hand instead. A sweet silence closes around them, like being enveloped in the softest cotton.

"Did you plant this?" John asks, and he's quiet for a good few moments. His other hand gropes blindly for the trunk, fingertips wavering before his hand closes around it.

"No. Honestly," Merle scoffs, "thought you did." He watches John reach effortlessly up to pluck a leaf from the tree and twist it in his fingers. "Sprouted up outta nowhere."

John looks at him with his new-leaf colored eyes, and Merle notes the leaf in John's slender fingers does in fact match.

There's a patch of green outside the garden that seems to be flowering as well, starting from the tree and spreading outward toward the cabin. Lilies of the valley are starting to surround the front of the house like a lawn, the green of the stems like grass, the buds like so many weeds. Except when Merle catches the sight of them flowering, all at once, he's mesmerized. The white, like a blanket of it, an absurd amount of blooms on each stem, surrounds the front steps. John stands there, between the blooms, letting Merle step onto the porch. When he's on the top step, he's almost close enough to John's face to kiss him. And he wants to.

The field of lilies fills the air with fragrant pollen, and John, blossoms dancing around his calves in the wind, stands among the lilies, waiting for him.

Notes:

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Green Locust Tree - Represents Love Beyond The Grave

Lily Of The Valley - Represents The Return Of Happiness


	9. Chapter 9

"I'm grateful, in a way, for Julia." John says, at long last, breaking the silence between them. He's twisting the leaf in his fingers, and he's not looking at Merle. "I almost wish I could have met her then."

"Don't even really think she was alive yet." Merle responds, automatically. "Never met her til I got here either." He thinks about it, head tipping sideways. Beside him, Merle can spot John turning to look at him, at three quarters profile, just listening. The green of the lilies reflects off the silver sand and it's thrown across his face like a stripe of pale sun. "Magnus loved her, still does, more'n anything else I suspect, and that must mean she was just as good then as she is now."

John's expression folds, but only by a fraction. His forehead wrinkles in thought, and he closes his hand around the leaf. "She's kind to me, the way the others, your friends, seem to hesitate on."

"Well, that's Lucretia for you. That girl could hold a grudge longer than I can."

"You can't hold a grudge at all, Merle." John responds, and Merle is more surprised than anything else that John has the beginnings of a smirk crossing his face. He bites at his lip, trying to hide his own smile at the thought of that, and dips his chin down close to his chest.

"Guess that's just my nature, huh?" Merle says, quietly. He gives John the briefest look, and catches the human studying his expression. "I'm only surprised about Magnus. He's got a heart bigger than his head. Figuratively, I think. Do we still, technically, have hearts anymore?"

John opens his mouth to speak, but honestly, Merle figured John knew about as much as he did on the metaphysical aspect of the Astral Plane. This isn't exactly his forte.

Instead, Merle changes the subject. The silence was deafening, the roar of the Sea raging against the silver sand, the wind blowing like it always did, and Merle and John at the eye of it, surrounded by storm on all sides. "Did you arrange the planter, inside? On the window in the kitchen?"

John falls silent. That's a guilty enough answer, and Merle knows he has him. "What kind of flowers are they?"

"Scorpion grass. Myosotis sylvatica ."

Merle looks at him funny. "Is that what you call them on your plane?" He lets out a soft bark of a laugh. "They're forget-me-nots. You gave Lucretiaforget-me-nots . You know, those are her favorite flowers?"

"I," John begins. He flushes, and Merle thinks he rather likes the way John looks like that. "I recognized them from her needlepoint. Thought she'd like them."

"And you recognized them from the seed alone? Wow." Merle huffs, "You really know more about your flowers than you've been letting on." He leans his elbow on the deck railing, and John glances back at him. "Where has this been hiding?"

"What do you think I did with my life?" John asks, suddenly, and his gaze becomes distant, fixed on a point far off. He closes his mouth, and the corners of his mouth turn down. "The plants weren't anything you'd be familiar with, but I began to study them," he takes a step toward Merle, and Merle gives him a laugh, off balance in a way he can't otherwise replicate, hand outstretched halfway down the length of the railing. It's as far as he can reach. John doesn't seem to mind.

He sounds relieved in a way; "Man, I should be flattered, but you know what. I'm surprised. A guy like you, with a green thumb? Green eyes maybe. Back then too. You weren't, you know, literally green-eyed, but there was a touch of jealousy there."

"Oh, and there was no jealousy on your end?" John asks, and he takes another step, his stride long, and somehow he's not anywhere closer than he'd been. It's a slow slinking move to the side, and John slides his arm up the railing. His fingers just about brush Merle's and it's electrifying. He doesn't pull away this time, and John takes another step. It brings him right to the bottom of the stairs, and Merle inches toward him, tips of his toes hanging over the edge.

Merle's face screws up in a grin, and he's closing the distance between their hands. "Oh, what did I have to be jealous about?"

"Your friends left?" John asks, not answering his question, and he's casting a sideways look toward the shore, toward the dock. Their footprints stop a few yards before the shore, as if they just evaporated.

"Yeah, they had some big job to do somewhere out there." Merle says, and gives a shrug, mouth still pulled into a smile "Guess they can't be too close to the house to get out of here."

John doesn't move, and Merle wonders if he's worried about the Reapers coming to get him again. He doesn't bring it up, and somehow he feels like that might be worse than asking would have been.

"There's some kinda teleportation spell blockage surrounding us." Merle adds, and watches John's expression twitch. He knows. He must have tried it once. It strikes Merle as odd that no one's used magic here before, but also that he doesn't know whether John had his own source of magic before everything, or also technically, after everything too. His smile fades at the realization.

"It's to stop the dead from escaping," John says, flatly. "You should have asked your friends about that."

"Would they have said anything, or would they have assumed I'd know?" Merle asks, with a cock of his eyebrows. "Magnus and Julia don't know or use magic," he gestures to the cabin. "Maybe that's intentional."

"Mm." John grunts an affirmation, and Merle has never heard him without a quick retort, or even without a response at all. "The only things allowed in the Astral Plane to have magic must be under the Raven Queen's control."

"Huh. You kept those plants alive with your own hard work." Merle says, and he sounds surprised. It feels like a fist has clenched somewhere in his guts, and it keeps tightening, especially when that thought flits across his mind. "Forgive me for being shocked."

John doesn't respond, but that's fine enough. Merle's hand closes around his own, and the twisting in his gut tightens painfully. It takes him a second to catch his breath, and he's just there, beside John, who doesn't seem to have realized what kind of hell Merle is in, and he sighs, once, softly. "I'm kidding, you know."

John's hand relaxes in his, and he gives it a squeeze, flat against the railing. "I've changed for the better since I've known you." Merle can't find the words to say to that, but his chest fills with heat, and he's finding it hard to breathe again. When John looks at him, his expression tightens, and for a second, Merle can almost know what he's thinking, but when Merle tries to speak, all that comes out is a choked breath.

John is just, staring at him, almost worriedly. "Need a minute, Merle?" That gets a hesitant kind of smile to cross his features, and Merle hazards a thought about when John's smiles became less a threat and more genuine. Genuine enough to almost send him into cardiac arrest, or at least what feels like it. His chest still aches, even after Merle's lips quirk up in a half hearted copy. "I'm not going to kill you, you know."

"I figured." Merle answers, his free hand pressed to his chest. He gasps again, incorporeal ghost lungs filling with much needed astral oxygen or whatever it is they breath now. He heaves another breath, grateful for the sea air, even if it's tainted by the burning ozone smell of souls. He never really figured souls have smells, til he got here. Now it's all pervading, sneaking into the cabin. One gets used to it quickly out here. The green cuts the silver in half, and Merle finds it incredibly grounding. He doesn't get as dizzy when he's standing in between the plants, when he can tell where the sky ends and the island begins. He wishes it were the same with John.

Merle wishes he knew what John was thinking. He wishes John put him on equal footing from the beginning, figuratively, at least. He still wants to kiss John, but the sensation is ebbing. His fingers twitch, toward John's, but he doesn't move an inch. Maybe he's waiting for John to close the distance, or maybe for the sun to set. He thinks about it. No sunset here. Just the rest of forever. Merle thinks about kissing John. He thinks about what could have happened if he kissed John then, how it could have changed. He thinks about what could have been, if he had taken the plunge and kissed him before he vanished forever.

"Merle?" John asks, and he's got one knee up on the next step, leaning in. That brings him up close to the dwarf. His voice is husky, hoarse in a way Merle thinks he remembers, on the day of Story and Song. His hand, coarser than Merle thought it'd be, but just as cold as it's always been, cards through the dwarf's hair. "Wasn't the fields of asphodels you'd been expecting, was it?" John asks, and his voice is soft. That calming cadence is back, and when he looks at Merle there is an adoration there the dwarf doesn't manage to spot.

"What kind of afterlife doesn't have asphodels?" Merle grumbles, and lets John reel him in. He's laughing, and Merle is caught staring up at him. His long long arms enfold around him, and he's engulfed in the heat of his embrace. The smooth side of his neck, where the crux of his throat meets jaw smells like sweet cologne, and Merle briefly wonders where he got that from, before his hand curves up across the plane of John's bristled cheek. That's a pleasant surprise, the casualness of it, not unkempt the way John was when he was afraid, but in an uncaring of outward appearance relaxed way, and a heat thrums through his gut. He smells so good, the warmth of him and the cologne and the barest hint of green, of chlorophyll, and it's making Merle's head swim. His hands loop around John's neck, and he's breathing the human in. The brush of his cheek scratches in the best way, more pepper than salt, under Merle's fingers when the pads of them swipe up across John's cheek.

"I don't think it matters to me what the Astral Plane holds." John admits, and his too-green eyes are focused on the middle ground between them, and if Merle's not mistaken, there's a heat there too. It's radiating off him like the sun, and Merle finds he wants to kiss him now more than ever. "As long as you're there."

"Uh-huh. Big words from the guy who made the cabin just as homey with all the plants. Not my doing there, bub."

"You made them grow-" John begins to say, and Merle stops him in his tracks by taking his face in his hands, and looking into his perfect green eyes.

"No, John. You made them grow. You brought them up, instead of just letting them wither and die." His brow knits, and an expression John has trouble reading crosses his face, and he gives John a tentative little smile. "You really have changed since I've saw you last, John."

In an instant, John is closing the distance between them, mouth slotting to Merle's like it belongs there, like it fits, perfectly. Merle is hauling him in, fingers grasping at the rough planes of the human's face. His touch is feather light, like he'll disappear if he kisses too hard, and he has to have noticed.

"Merle?" John asks, the second they pull apart, his nose brushing the tip of Merle's, and his voice betrays him. It cracks, in a way that feels unfamiliar but aches just the same. Merle doesn't know if he likes the feeling, but when John's hands ease around his back and his mouth slots so perfectly to Merle's again, he relaxes in the human's embrace. Merle's hand comes down to his chest, circling his collarbone, thumb brushing the hollow of John's throat, and he's seeking some kind of heat in the sweet corners of the human's mouth, and Merle finds he tastes something like honeysuckle, and a hunger rises in him, ravenous, that's gathering Merle upright onto the human's knees, and crushing John's mouth to his own, and climbing astride him so he can taste and touch and love more of him. Merle's other hand climbs his shoulder and curls around the back of his neck, fingers twisting in his hair. He's ravenous for the touch, the surging heat that slugs through him, and John is just as eager to give it to him.

He has Merle wedged between his chest and the top of the steps, and it's only when he draws back to breathe, Merle catches a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, of the rest of the cabin's occupants rushing from the window to hide the fact they were watching. The telltale back and forth wave of the curtains is evidence enough that someone has hidden from view behind them. Merle checks to see if John has noticed, but he's distracted enough, mouth so close to Merle's. His nose brushes Merle's cheek, and he's breathing slowly, steadily. And his gaze is heavy in a way the dwarf doesn't know if he could match, or if he already is .

His hand is warm all of a sudden, inviting, curling along just at the nape of his neck. John is pulling him in in an instant, bringing his mouth to Merle's.

"Wait-" Merle glances down and John's arm, just under his, tenses. This feels familiar, this crescendo building higher and higher, in a way that chokes the breath out of Merle, a grief too deep to name yawning wide in him.

"I just." Merle says, to break the silence, a shaking fist twisting John's lapel. He eases in, eyelids half closed, and tips his head to the side. Merle's voice is something shy of a whisper when he puts his lips to John's. "Want it on even footing."

John grunts a reply, something monosyllabic not even worth wording, and Merle presses in once more, mouth meeting John's. His head tips, and John plunges his tongue into his mouth. He freezes for a split second, mind reeling, willing himself to relax, his heart to stop pounding like it's liable to explode at any second. All at once it hits him, the memory of Davenport. It threatens to swallow him whole and he's teetering there on the edge for what feels like forever, and a small part of him feels like it's betraying the gnome, memories flashing before him, in his mind's eye. He fights the feeling, but it's getting the better of him. Merle's eyes clench shut. John's knuckles brush his cheek, and it snaps him out of it. He covers John's hand with his own and pulls it to his mouth, lips pressing to his knuckles. A laugh bubbles out of him like an ache, and he drops his forehead to John's shoulder. The human's arms don't even twitch away, even after Merle's fingers release his hand. John lets his hand drop before lifting it once more, and tucking the bruised leaf behind Merle's ear.

"I like it better when you're covered in foliage." John says, and it takes Merle a second of staring at him to realize it's a joke . That nearly gets his heart to stop in his chest. There's something in the way John looks at him that makes his chest tighten, and for a moment Merle wishes he had something he could talk about easily. He thinks about the locust tree somewhere behind them, and how the heady scent of the blooms is carrying through the breeze all around them, much stronger than it had been moments ago. Even so, the cabin blocks the worst of the wind from hitting them. That's good, in a way, even if Merle does enjoy the windblown look John seems to be sporting any time he's outside, which is more often than not anyway.

John is handsome , Merle knows, but it's when he smiles that Merle discovers he truly is in love. The way his green eyes sparkle, only so rarely, the seriousness giving way to a kind of mischief that Merle finds irresistible. The red wind chapped strip of flesh that dapples across John's nose and cheeks is inelegant in its way, but it suits John, and it makes him look more alive, and the irony is not lost on Merle. He loves it, the way he finds he loves the rest of John's features. The heaviness of his brow, and each line where his forehead knits, and the way his hair, dark and full, falls across his forehead, almost over his eyes. It never used to do that. Impeccable, perfect John would never have let a single hair be out of place, but now, but now , this man was as far flung from the Hunger as he could possibly be. The five o clock shadow that's growing, casually, the way one would when they intentionally want the look, the beginnings of a beard, the unshaven lines of his face, it's all so endearing , and Merle finds he loves him for it.

The curve of his mouth would be labeled bitter by anyone who didn't know him, but Merle knows, and Merle can see the unhappiness dissipating, the way it's melting from his mind and body, ever so slowly, leaving hollow points that Merle is intent to fill with love, to fill with warmth and happiness and whatever else John needs or wants to be filled with.

It's like Davenport in a way, except with him there were sharp edges to be sanded down and hard places to be softened. John needed so much rotcleared out and replaced with fresh green new life. His hard places needed to be broken down, built back up. Again, the irony of that statement strikes Merle.

John doesn't have a response, instead tipping his mouth to the side, and capturing Merle's lips with his own. Merle's hand cups his jaw, and when he opens his mouth to it, he's seeking out the soft places that will make John gasp. It's almost muscle memory that leads him on, except this is wholly new. Merle's breath comes in short bursts when he pulls back. John's fingers are entangled in his beard. He doesn't want to pull too far away, in case this moment ends and he wakes up.

A small voice in his head asks about Davenport, but Merle squashes it down, pulling John to him once more, the howling of the wind around the cabin that shields them nearly drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears and the pounding of his ghost heart.


	10. Chapter 10

Someone new steps onto the island, and a chill drags through the air even before anyone knows he's there. It's as if Casa Burnsides hefts a sigh at another lost soul, gathered to its beacon. Merle is carefully pruning the locust tree, though he suspects it will never produce sap, but that's a side effect of the Astral Plane, he thinks. John sits, knees up, on the front porch, just watching him. Every so often, Merle will hazard a look at him, and John will still be there, regarding him with some interest. But the very second he hears something like a footstep, sand crushed underfoot with a very distinct sound, one he knows better than anything else, something like a muscle memory, Merle's ears perk up and his head rockets to the side, to the dock, and there is one ragged looking gnome, familiar in his cut and stature. He's mooring a sailboat to the dock, and it rocks ever so slightly in the tide of souls, its sails heavy. The way he stands, loosely, weak, as he takes hold of the bollard, leaning against it like his legs are giving way. From what he can tell, Davenport moves numbly, like he's too cold to function. He's reminded, absurdly, of the Ice Plane. Of watching Davenport nimbly flit across the frozen surface, only to return half a slab of ice. He moved the same way then too, when he was freezing to death.

John lingers back by the porch, letting Merle stagger forward to the dock. It begins as an amble, petrified almost, like he can't get his legs to listen, before he breaks out in a full-aught run as fast as his little legs can carry him. His legs are stiff when he reaches the gnome. Kravitz didn't accompany him this time, which seems weird to him, but Merle recognizes the boat as the same one that sat docked down at Bottlenose Cove, every time Davenport came in from the sea. The sails are fuller, this time, though, and that thought thrills Merle, because he knows how easily Davenport could tease a good headwind into taking him where he needs to go. Still though, he fears what this means.

There's no water in the Astral Sea, but still, somehow Davenport's hair and clothes are very damp, Merle discovers. His orange hair is streaked through with silver and it's messy and windblown, hanging down to his shoulders in knots like he'd been tumbled about underwater, and dripping and that gives his heart a wrench. It wasn't like that when he left. He wonders if this is just how Davenport chose to look, but the wet scares him. He doesn't want to ask.

He's wearing a chain around his neck, and the rings on it jingle under his shirt. Rings, plural. A sour taste arises in his mouth and he's quiet, brow furrowed. Davenport's hand comes up to cover it. He doesn't say a word but his expression twists in recognition and visible pain the instant he locks eyes with Merle. It hits Merle that he didn't know, that Davenport hadn't been home since.

Merle's fingers close around Davenport's face, cradling the curves of it. His expression crumples, and he presses his forehead to Davenport's. The gnome's hands come up to his shoulders, before he enfolds Merle close to his chest.

Merle touches the rings, and it's an ache that builds in him when he realizes they're matching. Davenport covers his hand with his own and holds on. His mouth tastes like salt, and it's rough, and Merle's eyes are burning when he grabs hold of Davenport's jaw, and he plunders the captain's mouth with his own, and he's holding onto him like he'll never let go. Davenport tries to speak, but all that comes out is a pained croak, and then his arms come around to clasp at Merle, folding tight behind his back. Merle has never heard him sob the way he does now.

The captain is chilled to the bone, every layer he wears soaked through like he got a good dunk into the sea. The wind must be cutting through him every time it blows. Merle figures he's got a good headstart on the gnome, and waits until he's finished, coming up close to the dwarf, because being wet like this is unpleasant as hell . It's quiet, the only sound Davenport's boots sinking into the loam like some heavy thing, burrowing deep into the murky sand, the crunch of Merle's galoshes into the sand muffled, buried by the sound of Davenport struggling to the cabin. He stops, leading Merle to slow.

Davenport stiffens there, a good few yards from the house. His shoulders set, and when Merle follows his gaze, Lucretia stands there like a startled cat, framed by the window closest to the door, frozen. She looks younger than he's ever seen her, like a little girl, terrified like that, and when Davenport's face shifts into something like discomfort, Merle knows. He knows .

He takes his arm, and ever so gently guides him away. "There'll be time enough for that later." He pauses by John too, and there's a moment where he looks as if he's about to speak, but doesn't. But can't. The way his hands clench into fists at his sides is not lost on Merle. He can feel the jump of his tendons, like steel cables under his skin, so cold, and the set of his jaw. He knows it like he knows himself. The only thing for Davenport was to get him to walk away. "C'mon," Merle says, softly, easing him up the steps and into the cabin.

Merle gets him into the washroom, which didn't seem like it'd been used often, or even before. He suspects maybe the cabin adapted to the needs of its occupants, and today they needed a snug little washroom to hang Davenport's dripping woolens. It was warm, though, and that's what matters. He draws Davenport's outer layers off, and they drop, wet, to the tile floor. His skin is so much colder than Merle thought it was, under his coat.

The gnome swallows hard, and he lifts his chin, and he's not saying anything , but the silence is enough to fill the room. Merle's fingers hesitate on the buttons closest to his throat, and he can feel the way Davenport is struggling. His skin is cold, and when the rough pads of Merle's fingers brush his throat, he doesn't seem to feel it.

Merle peels his shirt off, and Davenport's chest heaves, like he's fighting his breath, like it hurts. His palm skims up Davenport's ribs, feeling the way his chest expands with each shallow breath. Davenport takes hold of his wrist, and that's the one part that doesn't tremble, his grip unwavering. Merle can't help but compare it to something unyielding, like iron. His eyes, blue like the ocean, so easy to fall into and get lost in, hold onto Merle's, and the dwarf is hit with a wave of just how much he missed him. His mouth presses to Davenport's and in an instant, Davenport is surging to him, as if desperate for some kind of contact. He's ice cold, and it burns under Merle's touch.

" Pan , Dav, what the hell happened to you?" he knows, of course, what happened. Or at least he can guess well enough since Davenport isn't talking. It's an emotional question, not even needing a response. Instead of a response, he closes the difference, bracing across the space between them, and catching Merle's mouth with his own, for just the briefest moment, before his hand comes up, fingers trembling to thread through Merle's beard, and he holds on, closing his fist around it. Davenport doesn't pull away, his breathing shallow, aching, and he's still bone-cold, clammy. It makes Merle shiver just being close to him.

Hanging there beside a window that Merle is sure was not there before, healing beams of liquid gold dance through the dusty pane, throwing the whole room into a glow, lighting the whole room in cream, there sits some new, clean, dry clothing. There's a soft sweater, and it looks homemade, and he wonders if it's another one of Magnus' handiwork. It's plain, a dark naval blue, but it matches the cold-weather seawear that John somehow managed to find. It's slightly oversized, hanging low on Davenport's waist and bunching at the wrists, like it was made for a human instead, he thinks maybe Lucretia, but it's warm . The pants the cabin supplies him with are nearly perfect, only coming up a few inches too high on Davenport's ankles. His socks and boots are soaked through, and Merle lets them dry in the windowsill. Instead, he slips into a neat dry pair of loafers, a pair that fit him to a t. Merle wonders if that was the cabin's doing, if maybe those were the kinds of shoes Davenport likes the best.

Merle runs a towel through Davenport's hair, then his fingers to comb the salt and the knots free, and the gnome lets him, settling his aching bones atop a small crate. Merle stands behind him, and the captain presses his back to Merle's body. He can feel the cold radiate off of him like the man was nothing more than frozen marble. His feet dangle, aimlessly swinging back and forth, and it's cute in a way. He loves that about him, his boundless energy. When he pulls back, Davenport's hair is mussed, and the ponytail he suspects it was once in is very clearly no longer. He pulls it back off the gnome's face, and ties it himself. Merle's fingers trail down the back of his neck, and he's shocked to discover Davenport is still no less icy than he'd been when he was outside.

He leads the captain out, and Davenport's hand slips easily into his. He's cold, down to his bones, down to his very core, and it makes Merle's stomach tighten in a way he does not like, and doesn't want to think about.

In the kitchen, Jules puts a kettle on to boil and stokes the fire. The room is warmer than the washroom, and the cozy little area is thrown into orange light from the fire blazing in the hearth. He lets go, carefully, fingers plying out of Merle's heated grip, and he hops up onto one of the seats. Merle's. It's shorter than the others, and there's a booster on the seat to let him rise above the table setting.

Davenport sits at the table, silently, and he's not moving an inch. A cup of tea - no coffee on the Astral Plane, apparently, after all - sits in front of him, steaming. His hands are folded in front of him, and he's dead staring ahead of him.

Julia sits across from him, and she hasn't said anything either but the way she looks at him is pitying in a way, and more kind than anything else.

"What happened? I thought Kravitz would-" Magnus leans in to whisper to Lucretia from in the hall.

"No, he washed up like this." she says, leaning back to press against him. A fear flashes across her face and she covers her mouth with her fingertips. "His clothes needed hanging up to dry." she adds, softly. "They were soaked." The look Magnus gives her is one of panic, and it's as if they both know, but don't want to say it. It hurts Lucretia, deeper than she ever thought it would. A part of her wonders if he will ever speak to her again.

He's in layers after Merle dressed him, but he doesn't seem to have gotten any warmer. His face is wan, drawn, and he's numb, his orange hair pulled off his face. He's freezing. Julia reaches across the table to take his hand.

Surprise crosses Davenport's expression, but muted, as if his senses have been deadened and gaze shifts toward Julia's. He doesn't recognize her, but he covers her hand on his with his own. It's a gesture enough for Julia to take a halting breath, and she wants to ask what happened to him, Merle can see it in her face from across the room. The words never come, and Davenport turns away, gaze impassively piercing the windows to outside.

He studies the garden, as much as he could see it from where he sits, at least. The trellis Julia had made had vines creeping across it, the beach roses fighting for dominance, having spread across the whole of the fencing and climbing the trellis. Merle knows Davenport recognizes them as something they had growing wild, surrounding the cove.

Merle casts a look toward John, who is forcing his gaze away. He reaches for John's hand, and John lets him take it. Davenport's eyes are nowhere near him but he can feel them nonetheless boring into the space between his shoulder blades.

It hurts in a way that Merle can't easily put into words, a low digging between his ribs, like he's hollow there. It aches, more than it did when Davenport was living. He's not sure if it's because Davenport arrived the way he did or if it's because he seems so helpless all of a sudden, and it's hard to see him like this. A brief pang of guilt surges through him at the thought that maybe this was what it was like when Lucretia took him from himself. He considers it, following Davenport with his eyes. He must be so frustrated, under the exhaustion. It breaks Merle's heart again and again.


	11. Chapter 11

The reaper who brought Davenport home, who brought him to the Astral plane, was a woman. One he only faintly recognized.

It wasn't Lup, who Davenport knows is a reaper, and who he knows like the back of his hand, and something about this reaper strikes him as so familiar but it's as if he doesn't want to think back far enough to pin point.

She offered her hand and pulled him out of the sea with ease, and in an instant they were drifting like kites in the air, stepping onto the deck of his boat, as if floating easily. Her robes, glistening iridescent gold on oil slick pink like a beetle's, fluttered around her as they stepped down from thin air, her hair visible from beneath the partially folded hood, her face lined, tired in a way he sympathized with. The fact she's not a skull face takes him by surprise.

The boat had capsized in the storm, mast snapped. It would never sail again, not any time soon. That was the first clue Davenport had he was no longer among the living, where his boat floated without quarrel in a calm silver sea, the horizon nearly indistinguishable from the sea below.

She gave him control of the ship, relinquished it to him, and then vanished.

* * *

Every time he looks at Davenport, he knows, somewhere deep down he's screaming and he can't stop. His words are gone - again. His own fault this time, and this time he's aware of what he's lost. It paints everything he does in a wash of anger, a frustration Merle has only seen a few times. It's aimed toward Davenport himself, he thinks, watching the captain's face screw up in fury and pain whenever he tries to speak. Because of this, he's been avoiding the others. Especially Lucretia. Merle figures he knows why. His heart tightens in his chest seeing Davenport struggle. It hurts, more than anything else he's ever felt, and Merle is pretty sure it's because he can't do anything to help him.

Beside that, beside the anger that occasionally visits, alighting over Davenport's visage like the shadow of a bird of prey, he adjusts. Like he ought to. Merle's never seen him in the same room as Luce, and he figures just as well. Trouble in paradise, as it were. He hopes somewhere that the captain doesn't harbor anything worse than resentment, but even then he knows Davenport could fly off the handle. Ten years of silence, of lossdoes that to a man, and now? Now that Davenport is forced mute again? The wound must be reopening, and it must sting more than pride could let him say.

He spends more time with John than Merle, and he avoids Magnus. Merle suspects it's more about cutting contact with Lucretia than any other real reason.

He's not sure about John, though. They don't talk, he and Davenport. Not that Merle's ever seen. John sits out on the dock with him, and they watch the souls that drift like clockwork stars. Merle has been helping Magnus every day in crafting a bench for the garden. The plan is to weave a living tree bench, but that's a lot harder than it sounds. It's rough enough going that he doesn't notice the time passing the way it does in the Astral Plane. He suspects neither does Davenport, since he's still affected by some kind of vertigo. Merle is sympathetic. He knows it's hard the first few days, or however long time passes in the Astral Plane.

"I wasn't careful," Davenport says, one day, voice still scratchy from the salt, gaze piercing the middle distance between him and the Sea. It catches him by surprise. But Merle knows what he's talking about in a painful instant. His heart stops, and he can feel it shattering. " Merle , could you forgive me?"

Merle's lips twitch, corners curling down. "Maybe. If you can forgive me for, well, John ."

"You didn't tell me he was handsome, Merle." He says, and the beginnings of a smile are visible beneath his moustache, painful in its own way. It tugs at whatever is left of Merle's heart, and he can't catch his breath.

"Well, y'know," Merle huffs, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and he's embarrassed, and it surprises him that he's embarrassed. He casts a look at Davenport, a weak smile crawling across his face. "You never asked."

There's a crash from in the kitchen, and out the porch door stumbles an incredibly flustered and messy looking Kravitz. He gestures at Davenport, and leans against the railing like he's trying to catch his breath. It's a very alive motion. He's struggling to get words out - "You-Raven Queen-Nobody told me-I'm sorry-" He holds up his hand before bracing them on his knees, nearly doubled over, trying to catch his breath. It takes him a second to get back to his feet and he straightens up in a blink, clearing his throat, dusting himself off. There is still something like a smeared flour handprint from where he must have brushed against the kitchen counter, where someone was making bread. He still looks flustered as all hell. "When you arrived, I should have been here."

"I don't need an entourage to welcome me," Davenport says, a hint of hostility in his words, a thread of venom. "I can do well enough on my own." He stops, staring at Merle, and his words soften. "I just wish I had some warning before it happened, is all."

"Normally, I would have come to retrieve you once it was, you know, your time and brought you in."

"Your Mistress sprung a surprise on the both of us, it seems." Davenport answers, dryly. "I just hope Mavis does what's right by the Cove."

"How are they, by the way?" Merle tries to act nonchalant, but he's definitely hanging on every word. He's sure Davenport can hear it too.

"The kids are fine. Mookie's taking after you, with the plants." He gestures at Merle. "Growing a beard and everything."

Merle laughs, but it cuts short when it hits him the kids are without him. Of course, they're not kids anymore, not really, but, Pan , does it hurt.

"What about Hekubah?" Merle fights a wince.

"You'd be surprised to know she's still kicking. I barely believe it either. She and I… got close toward the end." Davenport says with a quiet laugh, lacing his hands together and staring down at his hands. "The kids are in good hands, Merle. She's a better woman than you give her credit for."

He frowns a little, but listens anyway.

"They put you in the ground, Merle." He says, suddenly, a cold tone in his voice. "Before I got to the Cove."

"Yeah, well, that's-"

" Hekubah told me, Merle. She's the one who saved your ring. Pulled it off your finger herself." He's staring at Merle now, and there's an anger threading heated through his words. He's not sure who or what is making the gnome upset. His tone is measured, but a simmering rage is in his every syllable. "Taako found you, but he couldn't have told me , could he? No. He didn't." His chest of heaving, and Merle knows why, knows these words were caught inside him this whole time.

"Dav-"

"Merle, nobody even thought to consider what I, what we had planned."

"Y'ever stop to think that doesn't really matter anymore?" Merle asks, and he can hear the way Davenport inhales, anger filling him like a poison. Kravitz stops him from answering, and the way Davenport stops in his tracks, almost seething beneath Kravitz' hand on his shoulder. He pulls free, jerking out of the Reaper's grip.

From where he could see the garden, the climbing vines seem to be yellowing. They're not too dry, he knows that, and he knows over watering hasn't been an issue. John is staring at him, at the both of them, and the way it takes Merle a second to spot him amongst the billowing green gives the dwarf a jolt. He looks so small among the flowers.

"Surprised you didn't know he'd be around. RQ keeping you on your toes?"

"What do you mean?"

Merle nods to where Davenport has stopped across the yard. He stands within the knee-high green, at the foot of the locust tree, face tipped up toward where the sun should have been. There's no shadow cast from it, but the breeze sends fragrant petals cascading down. There are a handful caught in Davenport's hair, but he is breathing in the scent, unmoving, simply taking in his surroundings, eyes closed. Merle thinks he is trying to let go of his anger this way.

"The Raven Queen made no indication your friend-" Kravitz begins, then stops with a frown. He's watching John, across the island, where he's just visible beyond the fence. "Merle, did John tell you when he died?"

"Yeah, he said something like ten, fifteen years after the Day of Story and Song."

A look of confusion flashes across Kravitz' face, and Merle is pretty sure that doesn't bode well. " Before Magnus," he states under his breath, and plucks a feather from his hair. "I'm sorry, but if you'll excuse me, I have something to discuss with the Raven Queen." In an instant Kravitz is gone again.

Merle's mouth twitches minutely, and he starts a slow ambling walk toward the garden.

"How is he?" John asks, the instant he gets within earshot. Merle waves off the question, no doubt about who he is. "I…" he begins, wringing his hands, and the words die in his throat, and John's hands drop, still twisted together. "I'll understand if you-"

"He called you handsome , John." Merle replies with a laugh.

This shuts his mouth immediately. John looks sick for a moment, and Merle is pretty sure that's just his nerves. He takes a breath, and that distracts Merle just enough for John to get his hand around Merle's smaller one.

"Death is unfair, sometimes." He says, and it catches Merle's attention. "I realized that, in the beginning. But I had gone about rectifying it in a completely wrong way, Merle." John is looking at him carefully. "To live without meaning is to suffer, but it's up to us to give life meaning. Your… Davenport 's meaning was traveling the world. It's… that just isn't something possible out here."

Merle chuckles, dryly. "Coulda told you that one myself, you know." His hands drop to his sides. "When Kravitz brought you here-"

"Merle, Kravitz didn't bring me here. None of your reaper friends did."

"What do you mean? I figured all us birds get the special treatment, and you got it too by association."

"I saw her once before. The reaper who brought me. She had perceived the entirety of the Hunger years before you came back, peered into nonexistence, and when she looked upon me, u-upon ascendance itself, I could see her too." John is quiet. "If I could have apologized to her I would have, but it slipped my mind upon my death the way dreams do upon awakening."

"I don't get it," Merle says, again. "So this reaper saw you, saw the Hunger and… died?"

"I believe something inside her did but whether that was her life that was extinguished or something worse that death could only act a balm to, I will never know. I didn't speak to her, neither then nor when I reached this island."

Merle opens his mouth to respond, but shuts it again, a chill prickling up his spine despite the lack of breeze. That also surprises one small part of him, like the sea air has settled, like it's crackling with an energy he can't place very easily.

John's fingers tense before closing on his, and he takes a moment to examine their hands. "I'm not worried that you love him, Merle." He says, and his voice is soft. "I can see the way you look at him." John's fingers close tighter around his hand, and Merle squeezes back. "I don't want you to suffer for his sake."

"He's suffering too, John."

John's green eyes match his, and he's looking at him for a long moment. "I know. We all are. That's what existence is."

"Is it?" Merle says, and for a moment he thinks John is going to snap at him, but he doesn't.

"Is it?" John repeats, slowly. His gaze lowers, and he doesn't look at Merle for a long moment. "This isn't paradise. The weather, our surroundings, are cold and forlorn and miserable. And I'm… happy. Happier than I've been in a long time. Maybe even forever."

"But?" Merle says, and he knows there's another but coming. He can feel it in the way John stands. But it doesn't come. Instead, John falls silent and laces his fingers with Merle's own.

"There's no need to make a decision." John intones, flatly. "Your... captain needs you, and so do I."

"Huh." Merle says, and thinks about it.


	12. Chapter 12

John sits on the steps, and Davenport is there in front of the tree. The flowers have bloomed, and the wind has picked up again. The pollen dots across Davenport's hair and his jacket, and every time the wind blows more is added. One long leg is outstretched, the other folded up close to his body. John's arms, both of them long, wrap around his folded knee. He's comfortable, sitting there, watching him. Davenport picks at the tree, plucking one pale green leaf. Absently, he notes it's the same color as John's eyes. He wonders if that's why Merle…

John turns away first, and he's examining his nails. There's slivers of dirt beneath them, and he's careful in how he lets his hands drop. He'd been working in the garden. Davenport drops the leaf from his fingers, where he'd been twisting it, and bruising it. His fingertips are stained green with new chlorophyll, and when he closes his fist it shakes.

"How long?" John's voice doesn't echo, but the way it falls hollow between them is enough. "How long did you wait after the end?"

Davenport's brow furrows, and he's staring at John again. The human's expression is folded, mildly, and his gaze hasn't left his fingertips. Davenport leans his palms against the tree, the rough bark biting into his hands, but it's grounding, it's a reliable sting.

This question doesn't surprise the gnome, but his mouth still falls open ever so slightly. He exhales, bitterly. "Do you want me to tell you we didn't wait or that we did?"

John blinks, and pauses. This answer takes him aback, and he shifts where he's sitting, other leg dropping to the ground. His hands are on the deck behind him, and he leans forward. "I'll be afraid of the answer either way."

A rough chuckle escapes Davenport, and he lets his hand drop. There is a cragged indent on his palm from the bark, from how intensely he was pressing his hand to the tree's surface. "We did wait, to make it official." He says, and his voice is gentle, like the very thought of Merle eases his temper. "But is it waiting if we were together before everything happened? Before…" He stops, and there's a long moment where a dark cloud passes over his visage. He grows distant for a brief pause, gaze locked onto John's expression, but it's flat, like he's looking beyond, like he's blindly groping for a lost thought. "Ten years is a long time."

John's gaze is sharp. "I don't know how many times I killed him for simply mentioning you. I," he stops, and closes his mouth, reconsidering his words. "I didn't know it at the time, but I believe what I was feeling was jealousy. But ten years without him, without speaking to Merle, has deadened that sense. And then another ten years without him after meeting him one last time?" His face twists, and something in it makes Davenport hurt.

"You had your memories," Davenport says, and ambles toward him. The flowers underfoot bend to his weight and then spring back up easily, without any sort of tension.

"For whatever good they did me." John answers, and shifts, giving Davenport some space beside him on the steps. He climbs up and settles on the step level with John's torso. It brings him to John's height. He's leaning forward. Knees bent on the step just below his, feet planted firmly. His elbows rest on his bent knees, hands closed into fists in his lap.

"Everything, all the big events, within those ten years are just…" He's finding it hard to phrase the words. "Cloudy, like muddy water. I wait for it to settle, but it never does. Ten whole years, gone . I didn't miss Merle, because I didn't remember him enough to miss." He takes a breath, and it's trembling. "What I did miss were the little things, the things I could remember. He ever tell you his favorite flower?"

"Bougainvilleas." John says without a pause, and Davenport gives a little nod. A faint pride crosses his features and then it's gone.

"I grew them. On the moon. I was never a green thumb, and they barely scraped through life up there, but there was something right in it, even if I couldn't tell what it was that made me believe so." Davenport says, and a distant smile crosses his face at the thought. "She didn't bother to take that from me. The irony isn't lost on me. It's the little things that stick and it's the little things that always do. I'd smell sandalwood or-or just grass , the smell of fresh cut plants, and I would feel like my chest was on fire," his hands gather over his heart, folded over his chest, "and I wouldn't know why."

"Merle never told me exactly what he'd lost." John admits, legs outstretched. He's leaning back on his hands when he turns to Davenport.

"He lost you, he lost me , he lost everything that made him a good man, a great man, on the Starblaster." Davenport replies, slamming his fist on his knee for emphasis. "It wasn't right, what happened. How much we lost. But Merle gained a family, and what did I get?" His breathing picks up, and something in his voice cracks, and he's fighting it, the frustration and the tears, and his hand comes up to pinch at his mouth. "A whole lot of nothing."

John reaches out, and when his hand lands on the rise of the captain's shoulder blade, Davenport stiffens, shoulders visibly tensing, crunching upward toward his ears. He takes a breath, and the way it sticks in his chest is agony. John's fingers are long, and they pause, amiably, along the ridge of his spine. Davenport doesn't move a muscle, only waiting for John to react. Davenport's head is turned to the side, away from the human as far as possible. This doesn't surprise John, but when Davenport doesn't move, John takes a moment to let his hand curl up the captain's shoulder.

"I know what he sees in you." Davenport says, after a tense pause. John's fingers don't budge from his shoulder. "Your fear and your sadness. That's what he does, collect us stiff old men who can't be bothered to be happy anymore."

John squeezes his shoulder, and it makes Davenport take a breath, feeling like it all rushed out of his lungs at once, like the very oxygen had been sucked out of the atmosphere. "He worries about you." He admits, after a moment of deliberating. "He told me so. We…" He fights the urge to tell him everything. "Living without meaning is suffering," John says, carefully, mulling over each word. "And I don't think we should suffer here anymore. At least, any more than we really have to."

Davenport's expression scrunches up, but he says nothing. He lets out another breath, not even realizing when he had inhaled, and lets his body relax against John's hand. He does not move from the spot, but neither does John.

* * *

Somewhere else, in the far flung distance of time and space, the first thing she realizes is she is out of the Stockade.

She is out, and she does not know how long she has been gone.

She drops to her knees on the tile. And then it occurs to her she has knees! Her second thought is how the tile is warm, sun-soaked. It is comforting, to be the first thing she has felt in a long time. She lifts her hands, and the discovery she has hands again almost moves her to tears.

"Rise, my dear." The voice is melodic, sweet like a mother's, and familiar in a way that wrenches through her like a knife. She stands, slowly. Her body reacts accordingly, and she is still amazed. Before her sits what she first thinks is a statue. An impossibly large beautiful woman in perfect proportion, made of dazzling diamond and gold. It almost hurts to look at her but she does not look away. Out of respect or fear, she is not sure, but the gnawing cold of fear in her belly is noticeably absent.

Her eyes, feeling as though they should be streaming tears, lock onto the image, a thousand times taller and more broad than any other living person she'd ever seen. Majestic the way a natural force would be, and just as terrifying. She does not bow, despite the uneasy realization that this has to be a Goddess.

"You have seen it all, haven't you?" This Goddess says, and her voice is tender, loving, motherly , and when the Goddess reaches out for her she does not flee. A thumb the size of her head caresses up her cheek, and she can't help but lean into the warmth. "From the very beginning, to times stretching beyond your wildest imagination?" She asks, like a parent asking a child how their day at school went.

A pang scores through her guts at that thought, but she pushes it away.

The thumb covers her brow, her eyes, alighting daintily across her features without crushing any of them. A rush of heat follows the thumb, sinking into her forehead, leaving behind what feels like a sacred mark tracing into her forehead with an ink made of sunlight. It glows warm for a brief moment, before it is gone again, and there is a sensation of expanding in her skull, of a veil being torn away. She knows this feeling, felt it for the first time a hundred, two hundred years ago. It burned through her, leaving behind nothing but a shell.

This time, though, she is prepared. It does not hurt. There is no fear this time, the sensation of not knowing, the uncomprehending of the danger . There is no danger harsh enough to hurt her anymore.

She looks again at the Goddess, and the Goddess smiles at her. "There are some mistakes that kill even the most hardy, but fate does not end at death." She understands, but does not understand, both of these interlaced within her. Her thoughts run, calculating, before there is a hush in her mind. "There are bonds that last beyond death." The Goddess outstretches a hand, and there in the threads that spiderweb from her massive fingers, a cat's cradle game for one, is an image of her son.

She is proud of him, more than anything else.

That emotion fills her from top to bottom, and she sails on that for a moment, before the Goddess changes the shape in the cat's cradle, the threads picking out a shape she recognizes, an angular symbol that glows silver.

"Seven birds," she says, knowing more than unknowing now. The Goddess looks on at her with pride, and she allows herself to sink into the warmth. "Their bonds are what kept the world from ending."

"Yes," the Goddess says, and she glows with joy. "Without the Birds there would be nothing, but without the Birds you would have lived longer, you would have joined your son." Her hand lifts to her chest, and covers the source of heat - her heart. "But you would not be standing here before me now, either. Fate is infallible, but the ways we get there can be difficult, or painful."

"Yes," she agrees, noting the large gilded fabric that drapes across the Goddess's lap.

"The moment you saw it all I claimed you for my own, Maureen Miller." The Goddess is beaming at her, and the Goddess has gone back to weaving. "And death is but one small obstacle in the grand scheme of things, don't you think? After all, there are ways around it, if you've seen every outcome. One must be patient."

She does not answer, but the Goddess holds up the tapestry before her. There, in colors too splendorous, beyond any mortal comprehension, is the history of everything at once, and she has seen this before, the finished piece, in bits and pieces the very first time she had come to know All. There is less inky destruction this time, less eyes.

The Goddess nods once, satisfied at the recognition in her face, the way it settles into a calm. "There are others, like yourself, who have seen knowledge, and those who have had their knowledge stolen. They are touched the same way you have been. They must be sought out, gathered to me, to us. They deserve a rest without punishment too, don't they?"

"What would you have me do?"


	13. Chapter 13

"Perhaps the Raven Queen could stand to loosen up a little, hm?" The Goddess says, and Maureen listens. "Death is her domain, yes, but fate is mine. She can have her boys pick you up after I'm finished, but until then, you're here with me. Baby, don't fear the reapers. Take my hand, you can be like they are." She pauses when Maureen just stares at her, and then tips her head to the side. "Have you found what you were looking for?"

"Yes," Maureen says. "Beyond this plane, and beyond all others." The otherworldly method of speech really is growing on her.

"Good. You know who this one is, right?" The Goddess asks, and Maureen knows, and the fact that she knows haunts her. "He knows you , Maureen Miller."

Her chin lifts, proud in a way, but the ache still lasts and lasts. She can still feel the eyes pricking across her skin from the last one.

* * *

Merle finds John sitting on the deck. His arm is nestled just so behind Davenport, just enough to be a comforting contact, but not enough that it's overbearing. Davenport sits, slightly crooked, with his head tucked ever so slightly, against the rise of John's chest, but he is silent, and his eyes are closed. John's leaning back on his one hand, and he looks as if he hasn't moved an inch since he sat down. Merle isn't even sure of how long they were out there either.

"What exactly did I miss?" Merle asks, leaning a hand on the railing. The corner of his mouth twitches up, and he's glancing between them. Davenport doesn't stir, and John shifts imperceptibly.

Davenport is warm, and it's a comforting warmth, soaking all the way through. His hair is mussed, falling across his forehead, and when his eyes open and focus on Merle, he stares at him for a long moment, as if not realizing where he is, a slow dawning across his features, a pang of grief, of surprise, before he sits up. "I didn't think I was that tired." He says, brow furrowing. His voice is still scratchy, recovering slowly.

John glances back at him and Merle witnesses something small in his look, a quiet knowledge in the way he looks the gnome up and down. John's arm pulls back only by a little, and in an instant Davenport is stiffening up again. The prickling sensation loosens when he catches a glimpse of Merle, but even so, he's freezing up.

"So, you and Hekubah, eh?" Merle says, ribbing him with a wink. It's really a blink, but Davenport knows his body language. It's the thought that counts, really.

"Not a snowball's chance in hell, Merle." he deadpans, and behind him, John stifles a chuckle.

"How close is close then?" Merle asks, all pretense of tact out the window.

"We were friends , Merle. More than what you could have given her." Davenport snaps, and then pulls back, cringing a little. "I'm sorry, that must sound horrible. I didn't mean it like that."

"Listen, you can be her friend if you want. Hell, you can even fall for her. Pan knows she deserves better than what I could have given her."

Davenport falls silent, his arms folding over his chest. "No, I wouldn't do that to you." Not only that, but Hekubah definitely was not his type. "It was a comfort, speaking to her, about you, about what I never knew. All those years I wasn't around."

Merle's mouth pulls closed, and the smile that gathered his lips slackens a little. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, Merle." He tips his head to the side, and nods once, slowly. His mouth works, and for a moment a heated look crosses his face. "You changed, the second we lost you." It's not anger directed at Merle, but the way it radiates off of him like a toxic cloud hurts . "Every kind part of you, everything I ever loved was gone , Merle." Davenport looks at him for a long moment, and it's piercing him all the way through. "I became close to her, talking about you ."

John sits, and he has not moved an inch. Merle takes a step back, and he stuffs his hands into his pockets, galoshes toeing into the sand. "Isn't that just how it is?" He asks, and his eyes flit to John's expression for a second before back to Davenport's. "Figured you'd like her. She reminds me of you, come to think of it." He shakes his head. "Pan, I didn't really deserve her then, did I?"

When Davenport cannot answer, his throat closing, choking off any semblance of speech, Merle's expression twists into something approximating a sour look. He shifts on his feet, the heels of his galoshes sinking into the cold sand. "Lucy's been worried about you, you know. Every time I see her, every morning, she asks about you."

Davenport's mouth curls into a snarl, but still, still , his voice does not come. He can't gather it, the words sticking like a bitter honey on his tongue.

"I know, Dav. I know she hurt you. She hurt me too." Merle says, and lets his hands drop to his sides. "But that's not what we're here for, to keep on trucking in our own sorrow."

The gnome's hands close into fists, and he focuses his gaze on the sand in front of him, steadying his breathing. The words will not come, and they are stuck, there in his chest, burning away between his ribs, like a dagger stuck in his heart. It hurts, locking it away, but the consequences, he knows, would be worse if he spoke. Davenport opens his mouth to take a breath, and he's startled to hear it shake. He twists his head away, into his shoulder, screwing his eyes shut tight. "I can't. You know I can't."

When he opens his eyes again, Merle is gone, but John is there, and John is still. He doesn't ask whether or not John approves, but there's a cold digging in his chest at the thought that he would ever consider John's opinion. He pulls back, and starts down the steps, before turning back to John.

Davenport is silent but for his breathing, when his fingertips, small but worn, brush John's cheek, down his jaw. Through the unshaven lines of his face. John's eyes, green like new leaves, like spring, lock onto Davenport's own expression, tracing each frown-line, each stress, with his eyes.

"What are you looking for?" John asks, in the quiet between them. He's standing on the step between John's knees, coming up a head taller than the human. His words almost make Davenport jump. "If you're looking for a hint of something from before, you're not going to find it," he adds, softly, head tipping ever so slightly into the Captain's curved fingers. Davenport's fingers curl inward toward his palm, retracting slightly. His tail whips back and forth like a cat's.

"I'm trying to reconcile every single death with, with this ." Davenport answers, and his brow furrows, expression pinching.

"With this ?" John asks, mirroring him, and the way he asks is easy, with the hint of a smile. His fingertips ghost through the hair at the side of the gnome's head, and it's tender . A flare of anger rises, burning, in Davenport's chest at the idea he's being made fun of, but he quashes that down. "With you being here. You, being alive once, being some human ."

"With me looking the way I do?" John asks, and when the gnome's lips twitch under his moustache, he knows he's hit the core of the matter. Davenport's eyes widen at his words and then narrow, crushing that feeling down, focusing on something behind him. "I can see the way you look at me." He pauses, fingers flexing. "It also helps that Merle told me you think I'm handsome."

Davenport is staring at him now, tips of his tufted ears quivering. It's anger, and embarrassment, and the way his stomach clenches, there's fear there too. He's not sure why he's so afraid.

"You think I'm handsome?" John says it again, and his voice cracks this time. Davenport doesn't answer but the cock of his head is response enough for John, he thinks. And judging by the way John sits back, thoughtfully, he's right.

"49." Davenport says, bristling, after a pause. His voice wavers, but he presses on, voice getting stronger as he speaks. "That's how many times I died." A weak and bitter laugh escapes him and it's the only time Davenport's ocean eyes leave John's expression, catching on nothing in particular somewhere to the left of him. "Fifty, now, I figure."

When John just looks at him, Davenport takes a hasty breath, and forges on with it, meeting his gaze head on, a venom creeping into his words. "Forty-one of those were from the Hunger, alone. That's what we called you, then." His words spill out like an acerbic fountain, burning his throat as they come, and he's watching John react to each. "So forgive me for having some trouble reconciling with that." Davenport snaps, tensely, breathing hard through his nose.

His small hands draw inward, fingers closing into fists. His nails, though dull as they may be, bite into the rough flesh of his palms, and he draws back. John does not move to stop him, instead letting Davenport hop up past the step and past him, toward the house. The captain tosses a glimpse over his shoulder at him, and pauses. "Merle may be a better man than I am, with the forgiveness and all. But I can't bring myself to forget it."

John gathers his thoughts, and when Davenport manages to haul open the door - the knob being just barely too tall for him, he speaks: "You don't have to forgive me. You don't even have to forget about what happened. I'm not asking for forgiveness."

The gnome stops at the doorway at his words, frozen in time. Within the house there is a faint glow from the hearth where Magnus banked the coals, but there is silence on the ground floor. The kitchen is dim, as dim as it would be in everlasting twilight. It sets Davenport on edge. He plunges forward the second John gets up, and makes his way through the house like a bull in a marketplace after he hears John come in after him, to the front door. He shoves it open with a struggle, the knob just a hair too high for him to reach, like the house itself is making an attempt at stopping him, and steps out onto the beach. His eyes are burning, and there's a knot in his throat that he knows is one of frustration, and it burns his throat too.

Hopping up onto the dock, he tears his mooring line off the bollard, yanking it free, before tossing it onto the deck and climbing aboard. He kicks off from the dock and drifts for a moment, loosening the sails just enough to catch a good headwind that drags him away from the island. He lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding since he arrived on the island, and the lighting of the sky as he gets further from the island is reminiscent of early dawn.

It's silent, out there. No cawing of seabirds, no rush of waves, nothing but him and the low whistle of the wind sounding like voices as they puff the sails, as they draw icy cold fingers through his hair - loose again, he thinks about John, and the careful way the human's warm fingers combed through his hair, and curses to himself when he realizes it pulled free of his ponytail the second he tore away.

"Hello again," a voice calls from behind him. He whirls in surprise, and the iridescent reaper sits there on a crate behind him, one leg crossed over the other. She sits demurely with her hands in her lap, and her hood is up a little higher this time. It does not hide her face, nor the ringlets that peek out at the sides. Strangely, the sight of her is a comfort. Her voice is just on the edge of teasing, and it alights a small flame of fury in his chest. "I take it death does not suit you the way it suits the others. Are you trying to escape the Astral Sea?"

"You can't escape death ," Davenport replies, snidely. His voice is thick - it still burns. That remark gets a broad smile out of her. "I just," he aimlessly closes his hand around one of the lines, and looks out at the waveless unending silver sea, "I want to get away from this ." Davenport gestures behind him to the island, much further out than it was a few moments ago. A dot on the horizon. "Not forever. Just for a little while."

"I see." Her eyes crinkle when she smiles. "Care to tell me why?" There's a knowing look about her, like she's aware of his feelings, but just wants to hear him say it. Behind him, he does not notice the boat has ceased in its drifting, anchoring stiffly in the same spot. She pats the wooden crate beside her.

He does not know what possesses him to oblige her but he does, and his tail coils up around his waist. His hands close around it like some kind of safety blanket, and he twists it in his fingers. The pinch keeps him grounded, and when his eyes meet hers, blue on gold, there's an unmistakable sense of deja vu. He knows her from somewhere, but his head pounds to think about it. An ache, making itself known in the center of his chest, rises up like an island made of broken glass out of the cold of his unbreathing lungs. He thinks about Lucretia and that's as far as his memory takes him.

Davenport takes a breath, eyes settling shut, and the warm air, the way it seems to buzz electric on his tongue, and doesn't taste of salt water, does more to unsettle him than anything else. His shoulders relax, though. "Forgiveness," he begins, hands working his tail tightly, "It's hard. I get caught up on whether they deserve it or not, whether or not my feelings are clouding my judgement."

"Are they?" She asks, playfully. Her fingernails, like diamonds in the dim, tap the boxes with a sound that seems to echo. " Do they deserve it?"

He opens his mouth to give a dutiful response, but the anger that wells in his stomach, that fills his chest like a thousand pound weight stops his words in his tracks. His voice catches in his throat.

"I think yes," she says, and Davenport forces his eyes away. He's watching the island go by, smaller and smaller now only the green of it visible, and the lights in the windows flicker on, illuminating within, the only orange-yellow-gold for miles and miles. He sees that too. He can't see any of the people inside but he could imagine well enough. They'd be missing him soon enough. At least Merle would. He knows that much is true at least. He doesn't want to think about whether anyone else did. Not Lucretia, not Magnus, and certainly not John.

A pang of guilt about Julia tightens his grip on his tail, before that is soon crushed to powder by the thousand pound angry weight.

"Do you trust in fate?" Her voice, softer than before, tears him out of his thoughts and back to reality. "Can you give yourself up to a higher power, just this once?"

Davenport doesn't answer, can't answer. Ten years of nothing, and even now it's his second nature to simply stop his words.

When he does not respond, she offers her hand. "The fear that stops you will only drive you away."

"It's not fear." He grinds out through his teeth. The reaper draws her hand back, long fingers curling into her palm, lacquered nails glittering crystal pink. That color, the shine of it, jolts his memory, and a delicate tinkling tune pops into his head. He always had an ear for music, and his memory hasn't failed him on that yet. He heard it through something , or playing somewhere . And then it snaps to him. Lucretia had it. Madame Director guiding the boys, his boys, through somewhere . It was fuzzy, but he's sure he can place her now.

Dr. Miller. She had built the base. The glittering robe is new, but there's no mistaking her.

"You died." he says, knowing it now, firmly, pointing at her. "You died two hundred years ago, before the Bureau was finished. You…" he stops, just looking at her. His face folds, and the words come out stilted and aching. "You're not really a Reaper, are you?"

"I don't think Her Grave Majesty would let somebody like me work for somebody like her." Maureen ventures, with a laugh. "I got out of Ghost Jail once on my own. This time I had help. My Lady, the one I serve, has vested interest in seeing you happy out here, on the island."

"Why?" Davenport asks, dreading the answer.

"You have more importance here than you know." She responds, cryptically. Then, she adds: "Forgiveness doesn't just mend bonds, my friend, it makes them stronger. And some of these bonds are the only thing holding this world together. My Lady cannot weave a tangled tapestry, Captain Davenport. I've seen what it should look like and this is not it."

He frowns, but he doesn't say more, only twists his tail in his fingers.

"Where do you expect to go?" She's up on her feet, lighter than air, in an instant, and she's crossing to the center mast, before resting her hand on the wheel. "The Stockade?" A brief smile crosses her lips, "The very edges of the Astral Plane, if there is such a place?" Maureen glances over her shoulder at him, and makes a small motion with her hand in the air toward him, fingers wrapping around an imaginary thread.

Davenport feels something like a twang, like a string tuned too tight around his heart. Not the real organ either, like some ethereal thing his entire being is centered around, his core . His hand releases his tail, and it whips somewhere behind him like it has a mind of his own, and his palm presses to his chest at the sensation of being pulled, his eyes locked onto the burning ache in the center of his chest that only seems to increase the more he puts thought to it. "Your bonds will always lead you home."

When he looks up, the boat is bumping the dock like an eager puppy. Maureen is gone, and the boat is otherwise deserted. He's not sure when he turned around, either. The sky is full of pleasant smoke, streaming from the chimney. The windows are all alight with gold-yellow, and from within he can see the bustle of morning chatter. The wind claws through his hair again, but this time, it gives his heart a lurch, and he steps off the boat, gathering his wits about him again.


	14. Chapter 14

When he steps off the boat, it's as if all the sound has been sucked away, just a silence thicker than he's ever felt. Like he's ten feet underwater, and he can't surface. Lucretia is at the forefront of his mind, and he can't shake that thought. Davenport is spinning. It aches, somewhere in his chest, and his breathing is shallow when he comes to the wraparound porch. Through the lilies of the valley, the green brushing his legs like so many hushed voices, he takes a step, and then another, and it's as if cotton is stuffed in his twitching ears. Everything is muffled, and he's sure this is his own nerves doing it, but still, still , Davenport struggles to reach for the door.

The knob is within perfect range of his grasp, and he's sure it wasn't like that the night or morning or whatever time it was he left. That sends a chill through him and it doesn't leave until he turns the knob in his fingers. Inside is hushed the second the door squeaks open, and he picks up the gesture Magnus makes to quiet the others, a wave downward, barely noticeable. It's Magnus, Lucretia and Julia around the table, a warm fire blazing in the stove, setting the whole room in a stifling heat, orange yellow gold reflected on their faces.

"When you left in a hurry last night, we…" Lucretia says, and her voice tapers off when Davenport looks at her. Something about him is weary, and when his shoulders sink she continues; "We got worried."

"You know, the only other landmark for, well, for forever , is the Stockade, and you can't exactly get into it." Julia adds, gently. "You could sail out there forever and not find anything but us." She shares a look with Lucretia and he can see fear, stark and distinct on both of their faces.

He settles at the table beside them, across from Lucretia. The chair is small, the legs tall enough to lift him to everyone's height, a bracing bar across the legs a perfect height to help him clamber up - a perfect fit. There's another similar stool beside him. Merle's seat, he assumes. A thrum of heat picks up at that thought, and it fills his cheeks with a flush at the idea that they made him a place at the table. It's a start, then, isn't it?

"I needed some time, alone." Davenport says, hands gathering. "To reconsider things." He thinks about Dr. Miller, and when he looks at Lucretia, he reaches out toward her. There's a second where he looks as if he's going to take her hand, but he pulls back at the last moment. The look she gives him is heartbreaking. "There are some things I'm sorry for, and some things I ought to forgive and forget." Davenport's ears twitch down, flushed to the tips.

Lucretia's lip curls, and she looks like she's going to cry. The low buzzing in his head and in his chest picks up again, and he gathers his hands close to his lap. The words stick in his mouth again, and Davenport's throat works and clicks like it hurts. Everything is muffled, and he lifts his hand to his face and scrubs furiously at it with the heel of his palm. "I can try. That's all I can promise." Davenport says, his voice thick.

"Okay," Lucretia says, and her voice breaks, and when Julia's hand closes around her forearm, and when Magnus looks at her the way he does, Davenport closes off into himself. "That's more than I could have asked for."

He is proud, in a way, that she's made something of herself, of her plan executed so flawlessly. It burns lower than the anger, hiding in the hollows of his chest, like nostalgia but so much stronger. He's proud that they managed to save the world, and that they managed to find each other, and still, he is hurt that Lucretia took so much from him, and maybe he's a little jealous the others didn't lose quite as much. Especially Merle. Somehow that hurts worse than Lucretia's actions. He knows it's bad, and it's something he could never tell Merle, and the not-telling eats at him like the coldest acid.

* * *

With Merle beside him, leaning his back end against the woven fence post, John's crouched low, almost on his knees in the dirt. Beside him, there's a stack of rose cuttings nearly up to Merle's waist.

"You never told me your captain's favorite flowers." John says, without looking up. His mouth is pinched in concentration each time he prunes the roses back and gathers the leftover flowers and brambles in his hands. No gloves, and Merle can see where the scratches from the thorns have battered his poor weary hands. Merle's hands, his own tan ones - he's still blown away he has both hands again - encircling John's. The human's hands are cold, the knuckles weathered in a way that is simply just John . He can't explain it any other way.

"That depends on why you wanna know," Merle huffs, hands still cradling John's. "Bet there's alyssum in the seed packets."

John pauses, looking at him. This time he goes to his knees. Merle knows the human's been looking at him, but there is something in his expression that wasn't there before. "Yellow or white?"

"Yellow." Merle says, and John hazards something like a smile. "Those were his favorites."

"Small and hardy." He comments, voice soft. "A safe plant. Unsurprising." He remarks, adding flatly. Merle's lip twitches down at the thought he's commenting on Davenport.

"How about you show me yours since I showed you mine?"

Something in John's face colors, and his fingers twitch beneath Merle's palms. "My favorite flower?"

Merle nods, urging him on. John's fingers close tight around the rose stems, but he doesn't make a sound about it. Merle's own squat little hands wrap around John's, and his thumb brushes the line of John's wrist, right along where the tendons jump each time his fist tenses. Right where the blue of his veins, still somehow pumping, crests the edge of his wrist, standing out against the surface. He pauses when John takes a breath, and doesn't resume until the human closes his mouth.

"I don't know. I've never thought about it."

Merle lets out a breath that sounds like a laugh. "Well, what really jumps out at ya?" John grows thoughtful, gaze wandering the garden. He lingers on the jasmine flowers. A breeze picks up, scattering the petals, stirring some up into the air. One or two land haphazardly in John's hair. Merle, without thinking reaches up, and John, in return, without thinking, bends a little toward his touch so the dwarf can comb his fingers through John's hair.

Merle plucks out the petal, and holds it in his thumb and forefinger. "Guess the jasmine chose you instead." He laughs, and releases it. The cream white petal brushes, soft as a kiss, across John's cheek before departing on the wind. Merle's thumb follows, tracing its path, his palm curving around the jut of John's jaw. A lock of hair, glossy and dark like a raven's feather, curls down onto his forehead the second Merle's fingers leave his hair. Something about it twists Merle's stomach, nervously, like he's some horny teenager again, and John covers his hand with his own.

Comparing hands, his fingers are long, inelegant in the way they're dusted with dry mud from the flowerbeds, scrapes of green chlorophyll and deeper scratches of red. He takes it John doesn't feel them. Its weird, Merle finds himself thinking again, that blood is a thing out here, that woundsexist. It's not like anything could kill them, though, not if they're already dead.

"What happens if I bring him some." John asks, faintly, his free hand crushing around the forgotten stems and cuttings. "That is to say, alyssum?"

"Are you asking me what would happen?" Merle is just looking at him, taking every inch of the way John's eyes flit across his tanned features, how his eyes focus on Merle's lips, just visible past his beard.

"I think they have to grow a little first." John responds, fingers lacing between Merle's own thick ones. "Can I trust you to keep it a secret?"

Merle laughs, heartily. "Are you asking me to keep a secret from my husband ?"

That word makes John falter for a moment, and Merle retracts his hand, just one instant of hesitation. John's smile twitches, downward, a brief glimpse into something deeper.

"You want to give him flowers, John. Why not start with these?" Merle plucks a rose out from between John's fingers. "These used to grow out by the bay."

"I know." He responds, as Merle tucks the flower behind John's ear, knuckle grazing just past the side of his head, through his hair. "I thought you'd appreciate them."

"Dav might too," Merle adds, softly. "He loves the beach just as much as me."

John pulls the flower out from behind his ear and brings it to his nose. The scent is subtle, but it is with pinpoint accuracy that he recognizes it. Merle is looking at him, and when he lifts his eyes to Merle, the dwarf closes his hand around John's fingers, clutching the one lone blossom. It blooms in their grip, sprouting a second bud.

"Go get 'em," Merle says, with a grin. "Knowing Dav he wouldn't know if someone was interested if they came up and told him so themselves."

Davenport was funny like that, Merle knew. Took him four years after the Day of Story and Song to even acknowledge they were good together. Took three times as long for Davenport to get the hint and marry him already.

Something like guilt blooms in Merle's gut knowing that John was thousands of light years away, looking for him, and he was busy on Faerun trying to convince Davenport to let himself be wooed. He waited, he did. For John. He tried to be optimistic, but life was waiting too. A life that was a hundred plus years in the making.

He wonders if, that day, the last time he saw Davenport for a whole decade, the gnome knew about the ring in his pocket. Before everything went belly up. He thinks, no. And maybe he thinks about what would have happened if he never met Hekubah, who, come to think of it, had the same orange-red-gold hair the gnome did. Well, back before it went an early gray. That was probably his fault too.

Merle waits, half hidden by the trellis, the green on green that wraps around it. If this is what it takes to get Davenport to face it all, then so be it. The gnome doesn't know how to grasp his own happiness, so its up to Merle.

He's on the porch, a hundred yards from the garden, coat collar turned up to block out the wind. Shoulders hunched upward, closer to the ridges of his long ears, and his hands sit in his lap. There's a stack of seed packets in his grip, sitting in his twisting cold fingers, red from the cold, legs close together, feet on a step below. Davenport's hair is loose, curling like steel and copper ribbons down around his shoulders.

When John approaches, he doesn't look up but he shifts over to give the human some space, silently, without acknowledging his presence. John perches on the top step, one long leg outstretched in front of him, reaching almost the bottom step. There's a small smattering of roses in his grasp, just enough to call it a bouquet. John's free hand comes up behind him, splayed against the old wood deck, and he's leaning back on it. So does the gnome. The warmth of the human's arm, longer than Merle's and thinner too, stands out, pressed to the curve of his spine. It takes Davenport a moment, but when he speaks, his voice is steady. "When Taako asked me what kind of flowers Merle would have wanted, I only thought of the flowers that grew outside our house." He lifts his head and rattles one of the packets. "Guess I was right in choosing the best suited plants for a sandy beach." That thought prompts a twitch upward of his lips under his moustache, and his tail is coiled around John's forearm, as if to keep him close. "It was Taako's idea."

John does not bring up the fact that Davenport chose his favorites to send to Merle. But he thinks on it, for a good long time, before he considers his options, and reaches out behind Davenport to pick up the flowers.

There's a flash of surprise when John brings forth a twisted vine, a full blossom, a half opened bud, and a broad dark green leaf that makes Davenport think of a long gone forest on a plane a hundred years away. His brow furrows at the thought. and then deeper at the realization this is for him .

"May I?" John asks, and his hands are far more elegant than the gnome ever gave him credit for. He figures this is what attracted Merle to him, more than the nihilism, more than the need to be taught something better, more than the new leaf color of his eyes. Davenport does not stop him, not when John lays a long hand across the rise of his chest, nor when he pins the boutonniere to the gnome's lapel, and then again when John's fingertips and palm smooth across the planes of his chest to set it even, just above where the burning of his heart has picked up again.

Davenport's eyes settle on some foreign thing in the distance, glazed over as he stares ever onward at the unending silver horizon, and he reaches to brush his fingers against the petals. They bend like silk under his touch, leaving behind a yellow tinge of pollen where his fingertips graze the centers. His movement is stiff, aching. His heart pounds in the hollow of his chest like a war drum. He's half-certain John can hear it from across the steps. "You did this? For me?"

John doesn't blink, instead focusing forward, settling in his seat beside Davenport, his gaze locked on the same thin line of silver where the sky meets the glittering sea. There is a silence that settles between them in lieu of an answer from the human, and Davenport is astonished to discover this silence is no throbbing wound. It sits between them, an anticipatory beat, before something bigger. The gnome does not want to broach the silence first, lest he shatter it prematurely.

"It was Merle's suggestion," John says, after one too many staccato heartbeats between them, lacing his fingers in his lap.

"Of course he put you up to this." Davenport hisses, pressing his palm to the flower. It crumples under his hand, flattened to his chest. The pin digs into the calloused flesh of the heel of Davenport's hand. His ears go back like a cat's, and his tail twitches like a whip somewhere behind the both of them. "This has his handiwork written all over it." He laughs but its bitter, dry, and aching. "Where did you get the pin?"

"Lucretia," comes the response, plainly, nearly flat. Davenport's breath catches in his throat at the name.

He grows somber, instantly, like the dousing of a flame. "Was it her idea too?" This time he doesn't answer, and Davenport closes his hand around the flower as if to tear it off, the pin plunging into the soft crease of his palm. He does not flinch.

"No. I don't-" John doesn't finish the sentence, but Davenport knows. With a lurch, he realizes what John was going to say. He doesn't talk about him with Lucretia. A bloom of sick satisfaction rises in him, and he turns his head away. John remains by his side, only moving to stretch his long legs and then fold them closer to himself. It makes Davenport think of a cricket or mantis, absurdly, all of sudden. Something like a surprised hysterical bark of a laugh escapes him despite himself, and he claps his hand over his mouth, giving John a wary look.

"What is it?"

"You're taller than Merle and I combined."

"I don't think that's necessarily true, but what of it?" John angles forward to get a good look at the gnome beside him.

"It's hyperbole," Davenport remarks, mouth sinking into a slight frown. "It's just… ridiculous. " He pulls his hand free of the pin's cold grasp in one swift yank, and presses his thumb to the spot of blood that wells up where it pierced him.

"Is it my height that catches your attention?"

Davenport digs his thumbnail into his palm to quell the sting of the minor puncture. "It's the face on top of your too tall body that manages to hold my attention."

"Oh?" There's amusement in John's voice when he turns toward the gnome, and Davenport is refusing to look at him. "And why is that?"

"I'm sure Merle told you."

A genuine laugh erupts from the human beside him, and it echoes off the sand around them, the beach deserted up to the garden, but he pushes the garden out of his thoughts. He doesn't want to think about Merle right now. Not even the dogs are around. Davenport isn't sure where they go sometimes. He figures they come when needed, and disappear when not.

Something in Davenport burns when John laughs, and the second he stops, the gnome makes move to get up. When he stands on the same step he's only inches taller than John seated.

"Does Merle do all your talking for you?"

Those words do slow him but probably not for the reason John hopes. Davenport stiffens, back ramrod straight. His hands close into tiny fists. "If you notice," Davenport begins, coldly, rounding on him, "My words were stolen from me a long time ago." When he turns to face John his expression is twisted in something that's reflected in John's own face. "Because of-of you . And your selfish need for the Light! And your selfish inability to see beyond your own suffering!" He shoves at John's chest, his shoulders, with each exclamation - the closest part he could reach.

Surprise shows vividly on John's face. He didn't think Merle told them that. He's not sure why he never considered it, that Merle was reporting back everything.

Davenport's voice breaks, and he points one painfully accusing finger at John. "If you-if, if the Hunger never happened, I-" He freezes, hands coming up to his face. "Lucretia never would have done her own damn plan without anyone's help, and I wouldn't have lost an entire decade! I wouldn't have been some - some pitiful thing, and Lucretia never would have had to care for me like some lost soul, and I never would have lost any part of myself, and-and-" He stops, chest heaving, and when he looks at John, when John holds his gaze, he's got his hair loose and streaming down his shoulders, and his throat is threatening to close, to cut off every possible emotion that threatens to spill. Davenport is shuddering and hyperventilating, holding in his breath, his tears, everything that is caught in the center of his chest, in the base of his throat. Davenport's hand encloses around his throat, where it aches. "Lucretia followed through." He swallows, and there's a thickness to his voice. "She had a plan, and she pulled it off, and some small part of me is so proud of her, but she should have trusted her family, trusted me -"

Davenport stops again. swallowing hard, his breathing a little easier, but it still hurts, and it sounds like it hurts. "Ten whole years. You'd think it was nothing compared to a century of running away. But I was gone . That Davenport that followed Lucretia blindly? That wasn't me. I don't know that Davenport. I can't even recognize him. I don't, I can't remember most of it." He says, in disbelief, shaking his head. "And I can't believe I'm telling all of this to you ."

The wind that drifts begins to billow, to bellow as it rises to a scream. Davenport's hair whips around his head, and when he looks at John there's something broken there in the human's expression. His eyes follow the curls of John's crow-feather hair being batted around by the wind when he finds he can't match John's gaze entirely. "There's some things even Merle doesn't know."

"And you're telling me." John intones. "I'm aware of the implications."

Davenport's eyes flit across his features, as if unwilling to land for too long where he has the possibility of maintaining eye contact. "Guess that's why the Hunger was so successful. People just tell you their problems."

John opens his mouth to respond, and glances up at him. "Some problems I can't fix."

Davenport scoffs, and crosses his arms over his chest, the box of seeds forgotten behind him. His body language suggests closing off, but his ears say otherwise. The half cocked, careful, vigilant position, and the way his tail curls around the length of John's forearm where he's leaning it back against the deck suggests to the contrary. When he leaps down, John lets him, and when the curled pressure of his tail leaves John's wrist, he turns to watch him go.

It's almost on accident that Davenport spots Merle, and when he starts toward him it's with a purposeful deliberate measured stride. Merle knows that walk - that's his taking care of business walk. A gentle smile crosses his mouth at the thought, and he combs his fingers through his beard, just taking in the sight of Davenport taking stiff steps away from the human. Somewhere inside, he knows Davenport's almost there. He's stepping away because he's flustered . Merle knows this, he's seen this a few times. He's caused it a few more.

Merle stands, steady as ever, in the garden gateway. Davenport pauses, hesitating, the second he sees him. His feet dig in to the sand, sticky and wet, and his legs feel too heavy to move.

"I could hear the whole thing, you know." Merle says, wearily. His hands are stuffed into his pockets, and he's toeing the mud in his sage colored galoshes. His beard blows faintly in the wind, and he wears a bleak smile. "Pan, I bet the whole island heard you. I missed that Dav, the one fit to blow like a teakettle if anything made him mad. Think the ocean put out that fire that burns in your chest?"

Something like a smile passes over the gnome's expression, the quickest quirk upward of his lip under his drooping moustache, accompanied by a snort, almost a laugh, and then it's gone again. "Anger is tiring, Merle. I'm tired. I'm tired of hurting." He covers the boutonniere, over the left side of his chest, over his heart and some part of him chokes up.

"Figured talking to someone who didn't emotionally have any horses in the race so to speak would help."

"Thank you, Merle." Davenport says, and he's not sure if he means it. He extends his hand, and it closes around Merle's wrist. He squeezes, gently, and Merle brings his other arm up and around the gnome's narrow waist, gathering Davenport to him. "I still don't understand how you're so at ease here." He murmurs, leaning in toward Merle's comforting presence, tucking his head in close to Merle's temple, and his fingers come up to curl into Merle's beard. His tail, too, coils around Merle, almost protectively, his ears folded back all the way.

"I'm a homebody, Dav, you know that, more than anybody else. Except for when, y'know, that home's got a wife that resents me for being in love with a half recalled shadow, or kids I can't relate to because I can't remember how to love somebody I spent every waking moment with." Merle shrugs his shoulders, hand picking at the fabric of Davenport's coat along his back, despite the unwelcome painful truth of his words. His words are not bitter, though Davenport can sense where they ought to be, where they would have been if he was in Merle's shoes.

That difference between them is what hurts the most. Merle would have forgiven Lucretia. The same way he's forgiven John for killing him half a hundred times.

Davenport doesn't know if he can, but the way John put his hands on him elicits a shiver of a different kind. It turns his stomach, and when he thinks about it, he's more angry at himself than anyone else.


	15. Chapter 15

John stands, just far enough away that when Merle catches his eye, he tips his head and if Merle guesses right, he's asking permission to come closer. Merle holds out his hand behind Davenport's back - a careful no , a wait . Davenport's fingers twine into Merle's hair, and the sensation is comforting. He's sure it's a comfort to the gnome too. Merle doesn't know how many times he'd woken up with the gnome too awake, fingers just curled in the coarse hair of his beard, running through it like a security blanket. It's sweet, in a way, and if it brings him some comfort in an unfamiliar place then let him.

The gnome's forehead nestles in the soft rise of Merle's cheek, and when he exhales, Merle brushes thick fingers through his unruly windblown hair.

"Do you remember when your hair was so short I couldn't even run my fingers through it?" Merle whispers to him with a laugh.

"That was standard regulation," Davenport replies, with a snort. His hand trails down and out of Merle's beard, instead plying its way across the dwarf's chest. "Wasn't long before we abandoned that too."

"Do you miss it?"

Something in the way Merle asks make Davenport turn to stare at him. He catches a glimpse of John in the corner of his eye, and there's a flicker of something pinching in his face. "The two-sunned plane? I…" He pauses, then shuts his mouth, fingers gathering close to a fist. "You know, my life was the IPRE. I always thought it would come sooner or later, and never bothered to look for it."

"Could call it fate, huh?"

That elicits a dry chuckle from the gnome and he relaxes in Merle's grasp. "To answer your question, Merle - yes, I do miss it. I'll never see anyone from there ever again, and wouldn't even if I was still alive. We all lost something the day we left."

"You can say that again." Merle says, and Davenport sighs, but it's a good sigh, just shy of a laugh. But still an ache curls around his heart, and it's evident in the way he moves.

"They're alive, and that's enough." Davenport says. Merle cracks a smile, and the gnome almost matches, but not quite.

"Noble." He presses his cheek to Davenport's temple, and the gnome lets out a bitter little laugh, eyes screwed shut tight, pressing in close. His hand comes up to cup Merle's jaw, and he plants a kiss on the corner of the dwarf's mouth, before Merle takes hold of his wrist - gently, simply closing his hand around Davenport's, and he kisses him again, the tip of his rounded nose bumping Davenport's. There's a joy in the way he does it, catching his lips with his own.

"You are a debilitating influence, Merle Highchurch." Davenport remarks, his mouth almost on Merle's. His nose brushes the dwarf's, and his voice is low. Merle gives him a muted grin, and he's working his feet into the wet sand beneath him.

"Yeah, well," Merle answers, his fingers working through Davenport's long hair, like rusted metal. "You married me anyway, remember?"

The air had been leaden with the perfume of gardenias, heavy and intoxicating, that day. He's still not sure what kind of magic the twins managed to wrangle, producing so many huge flawless flowers to decorate and then spelling them to produce ten times their original perfume. It was beautiful though, everyone agreed. For an outdoor wedding, in the summer directly on the beach? He couldn't have asked for anything better.

If he remembers right, it was during that golden time where nobody's anger was outright, and there were no fistfights breaking out at a Highchurch wedding for the first time ever. Davenport wore red. The dress uniform he first met the gnome in. Merle would have gotten murdered if he wore something casual, so he went with something closer matching. He's pretty sure flip flops would have been a death sentence too. They both were barefoot. Along with most of the party. The sand was warm underfoot, and the sunset painted everything in a molten yellow light.

Lucretia had settled into never making eye contact with Davenport, and even when she was congratulating them later she spoke to the both of them but her gaze was lowered.

Thinking about that hurts like a hole in his chest, and he turns his attention to Davenport. The gnome's hair curls, more wavy than kinky, despite the length, and despite Davenport's efforts to stem the unkempt look. It's soft, though, somehow still despite the way the salt water dredged through it, and Merle has his fingers coiled through a thick copper and steel piece of it that seems to have escaped Davenport's ponytail, that threatens to curl sideways under the gnome's chin. The color almost matches Davenport's moustache, but there is more grey in his facial hair than red anymore. Merle knows Davenport's always been handsome, but the graying edges make him look more refined, and the crinkles and frown lines of his forehead stand out far less now that he looks the age his seriousness lent him years ago.

He loves him more than anything else, Merle knows. The steely blue of his eyes, and the way the corners crinkle when he smiles, or when he's looking at Merle, and when he's laughing, the way the icy countenance gives way to spring, to the sparkle of newfound joy. It's funny, also, that Davenport is so fastidious when it comes to his personal appearance. Merle isn't sure he's ever seen Davenport unshaven outside of those rare days once in a while when his boat would be freshly moored, and he'd be bounding in to sweep Merle off his feet, and he'd be scruffy and it would make Merle laugh every time to run his rough palms along Davenport's prickly jaw and to kiss his chapped salt-flavored lips, and sweep his fingers through Davenport's loose chestnut locks where they cascade past his jaw, and press his forehead to the gnome's in absolute joy.

Well, at least it used to, back when it happened. Back when they were living.

Those infrequent days were his favorites, because Davenport was home, and wasn't rushing out the door to the next adventure. They could take it slow, and they usually did, lazily loving each other in the low golden light of morning, in their bed, and it was perfect every time Davenport came home to that. Merle loves him, because of those quiet mornings when the kids were out with their own lives, where he and Davenport had nothing to do but hold each other.

He conjures, with the slightest smirk, the image of Davenport under him during one of those such mornings. When his hair was wild on the pillow under his head. The copper coiled, like ribbons, around his face and down his bare shoulders, and, Merle realizes he has not seen Davenport as flushed and untroubled as he was that morning in a long time.

The gnome's words knock him out of his reverie the second he realizes Davenport had been speaking, and he comes back to focus, tuning in just in time to hear Davenport continue what he was saying.

"-nd Istus is the tapestry weaver, but Maureen has beheld the finished work long before anyone else has."

"What?" Merle asks, the intoxicating thoughts of the gnome moving with him in the early twilight far gone, and instead replaced by an empty cold.

"The bonds are the threads, Merle." Davenport levels his gaze at him. "That's what's holding us all together, why John's here, why I'm here."

"Maureen Miller ?" Merle pulls a face. "The big scary crystal ghost lady? The one with the prophecy? The one whose crystals ate my arm ?"

"She wasn't a crystal ghost back then." Davenport says, "And she isn't one anymore." His mouth folds in a line and Merle knows that look, thatTrying To Remember look. "I was there. I think. I…" The gnome hesitates. "I remember seeing Lucretia after that call. She didn't touch her stone of far speech for weeks." Davenport pauses, rolling his lips together tightly under his moustache. "If I could lose the memory of seeing her like that, losing someone like that, I think I'd surrender it in a heartbeat. That was when she knew, I think, that the results of her actions were just as dangerous as everything else any one of us caused in the relic wars." He takes a breath and adds quietly, gesticulating with one hand for emphasis. "I don't hate Lucretia despite what she may think. That's my daughter , or the closest thing to it I'll ever have. I could never hate her, even if she took everything from me. I just…" Davenport's shoulders fall and he hops up onto the garden fence, perching there like the little creature he is.

"And you just can't bring yourself to tell her, huh?" Merle offers, hefting a leg up onto the fence, taking a seat beside him. His broad hand closes around Davenport's knee bumping next to his. "I know, I figured. Can read you like a book sometimes." Davenport sighs, and gives him a long weary look, before covering his hand with his own. Merle leans in, his other hand guiding Davenport's chin up, his face angling toward Merle's. His fingertips curl around the fresh shaven line of Davenport's jaw, and when the gnome meets his eyes for a second, his gaze darts down to Merle's mouth and then back up.

"If you're trying to make me feel better, Merle-" He sighs, words stopping short the second he feels Merle's arm work it's way around his back. The dwarf presses his forehead to Davenport's temple, holding him close.

"Well, the question still stands. Is it working?" Merle whispers with a half-grin, and the low sound of his voice vibrates through Davenport's chest. The gnome's ears flick back, settling in a relaxed position, low on the sides of his head. Merle easily turns his head and presses a dry kiss to the fuzzy outer shell of Davenport's long tufted ear. It twitches and Davenport fights a smile.

He cards his fingers through Merle's beard, settling on the soft angles of his jaw. Behind them, his tail curls around Merle's waist, flicking lazily back and forth. "Yeah, maybe a little."

Merle glances back to look for John and finds he's not there. The sandy path his boots have taken him leads to the front, where Merle can't see. He frowns, and slowly takes Davenport's face in his hand. He kisses him, one good long romance novel kiss and the gnome reciprocates without a second thought, fingers twisting in Merle's beard.

II.

John leans up against the front steps of the cabin, and the finely sanded wood digs into the place between his shoulders. He doesn't move despite the sensation, instead leaning further against it, the pain a bright spot in his thoughts, everything else a dull roar. In an instant, he realizes he is no longer alone. Beside the locust tree, standing amongst the green flowers - though not bending them or trampling them underfoot - is the Reaper he had met only once before, centuries ago, and that startles John more than anything else.

"I know you, don't I?" John asks, suddenly, gaze low. The reaper scans the horizon, before facing him. There is a lily of the valley being twisted in her well manicured fingertips, and John thinks he knows a good manicure when he sees one. Her nail digs into the stem and green juice ekes out a drop at a time across her nails. Distantly, he is aware of the poison she's coating her thumbnail in, but the flowers remain untouched suspended by their fragile stems in the air.

"Do you?" She asks, lightly, a direct mirror of his words. Her hood glistens in the sun, iridescent. It makes him think of the pest beetles of his home plane, their green-blue carapaces but different. But pink. When the Reaper makes eye contact, it's almost electric. He stands up straighter, the muscles in his back and knees protesting, and the way she's looking at him suggests she knows his words before he will say them. "A hundred thousand eyes on me."

"And millions more everywhere else." He responds, slowly.

"Funny what you remember." She replies, and carefully tucks the lily of the valley in his breast pocket, patting it to straighten it out in a move that feels more maternal than anything else. A pang of something like sadness rises in his chest, and he notes its existence absently, without critically dwelling on it, mouth folded. When she looks at him over her shoulder, the silver light reflects off of her like diamonds, like stained glass. It stops him short. "I know what you're thinking."

John's voice trips over itself. For the first time his silver tongue has failed him. "What was it like-?"

"Dying? Seeing everything all laid out like the worst jigsaw puzzle? Millions of millions of eyes focused on the Light of Creation, on me ?"

"When I sought out the meaning of life, I saw the brightest colors, all shining like a kaleidoscope, but it was all chaos, nothing was set out the way it ought to have been, nothing was neat. Nothing was planned."

"What you saw was like the back of a needlepoint. Beautiful."

" Chaotic . The chaos had no meaning, nothing had meaning." His green eyes clip to hers, searching the teasing curve of her brow, the purse of her lips. A bleak sense of frustration raises its ugly head somewhere in his chest, and that chokes his words back. "There was nothing, and it all meantnothing. That's more mortifying, more terrifying than I could ever imagine."

Her expression shifts almost imperceptibly. "And you wished for all of existence to know how meaningless it all was. Why?"

"I called it ascendant, I," John stops, working his jaw. "How could I let them all just go about their lives being happy when none of it would matter, when none of it would ever matter? It just seemed… cruel." His hands drop at his sides.

"And you never stopped to consider these blissfully ignorant people were happy because they had found their own meaning?" She asks, sharply, rounding on him. Her cloak drew around herself like a shining chrysalis, only the vaguest shape of person beneath.

"No." John admits at length. "Because they deserved the truth."

"Was it the truth?" The reaper's head tips to the side. "A quantifiable, measurable, sustained truth?"

John doesn't answer. Maureen takes a step around him, then behind his back. "I was not happy when I lived. I had never been happy, not like them, with their wives and their children." He begins again, slowly. Something in his voice is thick, and he must pause to clear his throat several times. John pauses, his gaze glassy, before he lifts his head to look at the Reaper. "I sought the gods to fix me, who I am, but all I found was nothing ."

"Nothing needs no fixing." Maureen calls in response. John's face twists, and something in his chest hitches. "You know that now, don't you?"

His eyes flick back and forth across her expression, brow twitching down. His lips curl down, and something in him shatters at the thought that dawns on him. "Merle was the first person I met who was different. He was, he," John stops, and covers his face with his hand, scrubbing across his eyes with his palm. "I spent my entire life pretending to be something I'm not, and crushing it all down whether I knew it or not, and here was someone who was happy and he loved another man and I -" John's words fail him, and he's left standing there, the numbness gone, and under it a deep yawning pit of some emotion he fought so long he forgot its name. Maureen's gaze is sympathetic, and when she reaches across their space, he lets her close her hand around his shoulder.

"I'm an engineer, not a psychologist, John. But I know what it's like, hiding yourself like that." Her grip is tight on his shoulder, passive in the way a looming glacier is, and just as cold. The way her nails dig in, he knows she's telling the truth.

"How did you survive it?"

Maureen shrugs her free arm, and her eyes lock on his, and she stares him down. "How did you?"

A feeble something like a laugh escapes him and John shakes his head. "I… didn't ."

"All those people, your entire plane, and you were still so alone." Maureen is focusing entirely on him, and there is a kindness in her voice that splinters on impact. "That kind of loneliness, John, it broke you. It froze you solid." Maureen takes a step toward him and there is something accusatory in it that makes him back up. "And the instant someone broke through, you killed him over and over again, and every time he broke through even more. You can't kill your feelings, John."

His green eyes lock onto her expression, and the way her face folds when he speaks holds his attention like nothing else, and for a brief instant there is a cloud of overwhelming fear growing in his chest, before it fills every inch of him, numbing his limbs. "You didn't survive either. I.." He squints, and then scrubs at his eyes with the rough heel of his palm.

There is a distant look on the Reaper's face, and she is focused elsewhere, despite the way her eyes are boring into John's. He can see his reflection in her wide eyes, and the way she drifts is unnerving.

"You worry too much, Lucy." Maureen laughs aloud, the stone of far speech nestled on her desk picking up every word, as she fiddles with the complicated piece of machinery. "It's not like there's something deadly in just looking . Now, here we go. Test 001 of the Miller Cosmoscope. I hope you're recording this conversation for posterity, dear. This is groundbreaking . To see every other plane is no small feat."

"Make sure to show this to Lucas when you get the chance." Lucretia says, and Maureen knows she's sitting at her desk, a hand on her cheek, resting on her elbow. There is probably a cold cup of tea abandoned beside her. Maureen also knows she should be working, but she isn't.

"Right, of course." Maureen laughs in response, and crosses the room to adjust the light of

She clears her throat and sweeps her hair off of her face, before peering through the lens. Something in her expression twitches in confusion, and she peers in again. Thousands of eyes open and focus solely on her, and there is a static that fills her mind, blocking out her senses. Maureen reels back in horror, and she staggers back against her desk, hands scrabbling against the surface as her mind fights to fill in the gaps, but is unable to. Her heart is pounding erratically, and her breathing is painful, her heart feels as though it's about to stop, and maureen can't seem to take a breath, her head swimming, the static overtaking her completely, and she is spinning, the room swaying back and forth, her balance completely shot and then-

There is a heavy thump of dead weight to the carpet, and when Lucretia calls from the stone of far speech centered on the desk, there is no answer. Her cries grow more frantic, staticked through the arcane link, but all Maureen knows is the sensation of being tugged, headlong, into the great unknown, the sound of Lucretia growing distant.

And then Maureen blinks, and looks at John curiously for a long moment. He has been staring at her for a good solid few minutes. John opens his mouth to ask if she's alright, before closing it again, and shifting his gaze elsewhere, hands curling closed at his sides. "It was hubris," Maureen says, at last, and John's breath halts in his chest. "My own fault as much as yours, as much as Lucretia's ." That last part seems to cut her deep when she spits the name, and John cannot hide his surprise. The reaper releases him, and lifts her hands to adjust her hood, and for a brief instant John can see silver tracks of tears illuminated down her face, catching the dim light just so. He does not speak, and the silence is wounded enough without his paltry attempts at helping.


End file.
